


Build Yourself Back Together

by anoncitomikolino, calamityjade, elwon



Series: Canon AU's [21]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Lego Batman - Fandom, Teen Titans (Animated Series), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alice is played by Maggie Smith, DCU Big Bang 2019, Earth-11 has a trans character, F/M, Get Together, Jason fixes the universes with matchmaking, M/M, Multiverse Hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-11-07 18:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoncitomikolino/pseuds/anoncitomikolino, https://archiveofourown.org/users/calamityjade/pseuds/calamityjade, https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwon/pseuds/elwon
Summary: Being forced to universe-hop through the multiverse gives a person good insight into what's most important. For Jason, that one universal constant is always Dick Grayson. On his way, he figures that if that applies to him, it certainly should apply for all Jasons everywhere. So, he better get on fixing that...calamityjade & elwon's DCU Big Bang fic, with art by anoncitomikolino!





	1. Earth-52 (Lego) by elwon

It’s been a mostly quiet night in Gotham, for once. Jason’s about to head home after a long patrol to curl up in bed with Dick, sleeping soundly to rest up for tomorrow, for a full day household chores and not so subtly hinting to Dick that they should finally get a dog. (Jason’s torn between getting something small and yappy, or big and sweet. Or both! Both is good.) Dick will probably start singing ~Do you want to build a baby~ at some point. It's not like Jason doesn't want kids _eventually_, but he thinks starting with a dog instead is a good idea. Convincing Dick not to go full out on the whole having and raising a family is going to take some persuading, he knows. Maybe if Jason cooks for him again? On their last date night, Dick had said something along the lines of he’d be willing to do anything for more of Jason’s cooking.

_Laying out on the rooftop under the stars in Gotham, Jason breathes a sigh of contentment. Dick’s head is resting on his chest, and they have a full picnic basket of food to eat throughout their date. All the big supervillains are in jail or Arkham, and Batman and Robin are on patrol, so they’re free to relax and enjoy being with together out of uniform for one night._

_“I was promised the stars, and you delivered!” Dick hums happily, shifting slightly on Jason’s chest. They’re at right angles to each other, so all Dick has to do is turn his head to the right to be kissed soundly._

_“No clouds for once, too.” Jason grins, tucking an arm under his head. “We can even make out constellations.”_

_“We can make out later. Oh, there’s the Big Brick.” Dick says pointing up randomly, and kicking one foot up on to the other knee._

_“You mean _there’s_ the Big Brick.” Jason says nudging his arm into the right angle to point at the constellation._

_“That’s what I said!” Dick turns his head to grin at Jason. “Show me the others, Jay?”_

_“I have the distinct feeling you’re being lazy here, but fine.” Jason sighs, sliding his hand up to Dick’s and gently taking it._

_“I just like you showing off for me!” Dick says with an even wider grin on his face than before._

_“Of course you do.” Jason says fondly, squeezing Dick’s hand in his. “So, there’s the 1x1, classically used by sailors to navigate their way around the world.”_

_“Oooh, you’re so knowledgeable. It’s really hot, Jay.” Dick says, batting his lashes at him comically._

_“Laying it on there a little thick there, sweetheart.” Jason snorts, pulling Dick’s arm to the right. “The plate, overlooked by most, it’s actually the first known constellation.”_

_“Can’t have the world without a plate, so naturally.” Dick nods, his head knocking onto Jason’s chest. “You’re my plate, baby.”_

_“You sap. The gem, brightest in the sky, and that’s what you are to me.” Jason says, moving Dick’s arm to the far left, and trying to make his voice sound gruffer, and only barely succeeding. “Not to be outdone by the wheel and tire, of course.”_

_“Oh really?” Dick says grinning, twisting to drop a kiss on Jason’s lips. “The wheel and tire are nowhere close to the gem.”_

_“The pine tree, because one constellation maker had way too much time on his hands.” Jason points behind them, pulling Dick onto him a little more._

_“There’s nothing wrong with dedication! I find it quite inspiring.” Dick says with a mock sniff. Twisting back down to lay his head on Jason’s chest._

_“The horse, because some ancient dude was in love with his horse, and begged the gods to put it in the heavens when it died.” Jason pulls Dick’s arm to somewhere in the middle of the sky in their view. “I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of the story.”_

_“How... Romantic.” Dick says, trying to hold back his laughter. “I guess.”_

_“The whip or snake, because no one can make up their minds as to which one it is.” Jason says, nudging Dick’s arm over to a wavy set of stars._

_“I could make so many naughty jokes right now just by moving my arm, but I’ll refrain.” Dick giggles. “At least until we get home, anyway.”_

_“And of course the most well known of all, the batarang!” Jason nudges Dick’s hand to a blank empty space in the sky, waiting for Dick to realise he’s joking._

_“That isn’t real!” Dick complains, turning to look at Jason with a pout on his face. “Even though it really should be.”_

_“And last but not least, everyone’s favourite, _the sausage_.” Jason waggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly at Dick._

_“_My_ favourite!” Dick giggles again. “And again, naughty jokes that I’ll make later at home.” _

_“Of course.” Jason nods and Dick’s stomach takes that moment to rumble. “Which is a great segue in to ‘time to eat!’”_

Jason hops down from his perch above the docks, ignoring the fish flipping out of the water with the Joker smiles still on them. At least he’s back in Arkham Asylum for the foreseeable future. He’d better stay there if he knows what’s good for him. But if he does get out, Jason’s really honestly, genuinely this time going to break him down into his component pieces, pack them in separate parcels and send them to different places all over the world, like the Marianas Trench, the Sahara and Australia. Let’s see him get out of that one.

His attention gets drawn to the clatter of bricks down an alley; and Jason sighs, but follows the noise into the shadows. He takes out his flashlight and with a flick of a switch sends the bright beam around the alley. A trash can has been destroyed, the bricks of it spilling across the ground along with the can’s contents. Old discarded bottles, cans and food wrappers make the alley even dirtier than it was before. A black cat jumps into the beam, eyes glowing green in the light; and Jason relaxes. It’s just an old stray making a little ruckus, nothing for him to do here.

Jason continues on his way, finding his bike still parked where he left it. He hops on the back and the display in his helmet gives him the ‘connected’ sign, meaning he can turn on his bike without risk of getting zapped by what feels like a bajillion volts, but is actually only a modest 50,000 of them. Jason twists the handlebars and drives away from the docks, feeling the tension of a mostly uneventful evening drain the further into the city he gets.

The bright neon lights of Gotham pass by him, and Jason lets himself enjoy the wind whistling past his helmet as he takes the turns a little faster than truly necessary on the nearly empty streets. Of course the last two times he did this, he ended up crashing and having to rebuild the bike brick by brick. It might have given him a really cool entrance to skid up to Nightwing and Batman, but doing it a third time will be pushing it. Dick can get mad at him, and he doesn’t want to sleep on the couch tonight. He’s coming up on Gotham Police headquarters when his helmet beeps with Oracle’s familiar tone.

“Hey Oracle, what’s up?” Jason says into his comms.

“Hood. Reports of supervillainy by the GPCD HQ. Are you free to check it out?” Oracle’s deliberately distorted voice comes through.

“I’m pretty much there, so sure.” Jason slows his bike down and sure enough, there’s someone messing up the place that is certainly not in a cop’s uniform, since they’re blue, not purple and white.

He pulls up a little way away from the chaos, which at the moment seems to mostly be the aforementioned white and purple supervillain throwing cops around, and bouncing their bullets off his forcefield. Jason gets a little closer, not recognising him at all.

“O, we got an ID on this guy?” Jason locks up his bike, making his way to the fighting.

“He calls himself the Calculator. He has a forcefield, but you should be able to defeat him.” Oracle says over the comms.

“Such confidence in me. I like it.” Jason grins, looking around at the fighting. The bullets the cops are sending the Calculator’s way are doing nothing, so Jason leaves his guns holstered and decides that close quarters combat is probably the way he wants to go.

“More that I’m confident he doesn’t know you’re working with us, and therefore isn’t prepared for you.” Oracle says with a twist of amusement to her otherwise digitally distorted voice. Jason can imagine the look of ‘who do you think you’re kidding, Jason’ that she’s probably got on her face right now.

“Liking it less, but I’ll take it.” Jason says, skirting around the plaza to approach the melee from the rear.

“He’s considered by some to be my opposite. Villains can come to him for intel, but they have to pay him.” A note of annoyance creeps into Barbara’s distorted tones. Jason wonders if it’s because this guy’s considered on a par with her skills, or because he gets paid for it, while Barbara is and always will be pro bono.

“Gotta make a living, I guess.” Jason says, dodging an unfortunate cop who’s been bounced off the forcefield and lands somewhere behind him.

“I’m fine!” The cop calls out, staggering to his feet and then falling over backwards, passed out.

“Don’t let him hit the button on his chest piece. It’ll analyse your moves and let him win.” Oracle says in Jason’s ear.

“Will do.” Jason nods, and gets a closer look at the villain’s helmet. “Also as a proud helmet wearer? His is dumb. What is he, five?”

“To be honest, I’m just glad his helmet says 07734 and not 59009.” Oracle sighs over the comms.

“Heh, hello boobs.” Jason mutters under his breath, grinning despite himself.

“Really, Hood?” Oracle says, and Jason knows that tone. It’s the one that accompanies a disappointed raised eyebrow.

“Ahem. Sorry, Oracle.” Jason coughs, feeling awkward. “Sometimes, I’m still five too.”

“I should think so.” Oracle sniffs. “At least you admit unlike certain other heroes. Called Nightwing.”

Jason creeps up on the Calculator from behind. He’s too busy playing with the cops to notice Jason coming up behind him.

“You’ll never take me alive!” The Calculator yells out, cackling wildly.

“Says who?” Jason wraps an arm around the Calculator’s neck.

“AAAAH NO!” The Calculator flails, trying to get out of Jason’s chokehold. “Curses, foiled again!”

“Seriously, dude?” Jason sighs, grabbing at the villain’s flailing hands and stopping him from hitting the button on his chest armour.

“Genuine curses this time!” The Calculator snarls, twisting one arm out of Jason’ grip, and slapping a gauntlet onto his arm.

“Oh no you don’t!” Jason yanks the gauntlet off the villains arm, and in the ensuing scuffle over it, it ends up snapping around his own arm.

“No! You won’t get away with this!” The Calculator howls, punching repeated at Jason’s now gauntleted arm, slamming his fist against various buttons until the thing’s lit up like Christmas.

“And down you go.” Jason says patiently as he forces the villain to the ground face first. “You guys wanna take over now? I think he’s done for the night.”

“Thanks Hood!” One of the cops cuffing the Calculator calls out.

“Yeah, you really saved our bacon!” Says the one taking away the villain’s tech.

“You’re not such a bad guy after all!” A third cop says with a wave as he walks by.

“Really, Mike, our bacon?” The first cop says, shaking his head. “We’re cops. That’s a _bit_ on the nose.”

“Well, I mean, he did?” Mike says shrugging and smiling, as he heads inside the precinct.

“Yeah, keep it to yourselves, OK?” Jason says waving them off. The cops drag the handcuffed and now free of tech Calculator inside the GCPD headquarters and Jason sighs, looking forward to getting home. Which is of course, the exact moment the gauntlet decides to shoot a beam of light out in front of him, swirling into a portal.

“O, you’re getting this, right?” Jason says staring at the light and trying to rip the gauntlet off his arm.

“Hood, be careful! That’s an int-dimen-al –rtal!” Oracle’s voice crackles through the static, dropping in and out so that Jason can’t hear anything but the warning.

“What? O you’re breaking up...” Jason says, grabbing onto a nearby street light as the vortex begins to suck him in. He holds on as long as he can, but eventually his grips weakens and he’s prised away from it.

Jason’s dragged into the brightly shining portal, not knowing where or when he’ll end up. Even with his helmet on, the energy all around him hurts his eyes. He squints through the lenses in his domino mask, hoping to get a clue as to where he’s being sent to. The swirling white energy is interspersed with pale blue lightning and transparent fluffy clouds of gold, giving no hints as to his destination.

He falls through the whirling vortex, losing track of time. It could be seconds or centuries, there’s simply no way to tell. Wind buffets Jason’s body as he moves, forced this way and that, until he starts to feel the effects, more and more. His stomach twists unpleasantly, and his head begins to ache until his vision grows dim. He jerks, unsure if he’s regaining consciousness after passing out, or if he’s losing his mind.

There’s an increased pressure, as if he’s finally reaching the end of his journey, or at least building up to a stop. Jason tries to brace himself as he feels himself falling faster, rushing towards something... The vortex around him darkens and then a pulsing light begins to grow ahead of him. He hurtles towards it with no way of stopping, and with a thud that forces the air from his lungs, he slams into the blinding light.


	2. Earth-16 (Young Justice) by calamityjade

Against all his expectations, the impact didn’t burn Jason out of existence into a puddle of plastic. He slammed straight through a barrier made of warmer air, like falling from a cloud, and only found more air beneath to fall through. His stomach flips as his body tumbles dizzyingly, until finally, painfully, a hard surface emerges to stop Jason’s endless hurtle through space.

Winded and more than a little disoriented and sore, Jason groans before he can stop the noise, hands reaching out to paw at the ground he’s landed on. He groggily feels around the firm surface and pats it in wordless thanks as he gathers his bearings, blinking the after-effects of the too bright lights from his eyes with some effort.

Looking around, Jason immediately notices that something is seriously off; he can see nothing familiar.

The bright lights of the expected Gotham skyline were not the first thing he saw, nor were they the clean and familiar lines of block-built architecture that made up the city’s brightly lit downtown district where he had just been standing. No familiar constellations, no familiar landmarks, no helpful Dickie poking him awake.

Instead of the street, he had landed on wood. Instead of the city, Jason could see the inside of some sort of living space. And instead of concerned citizens reaching out to help him after his mishap, Jason found himself staring at the slumbering form of an honest to Bat giant.

“Holy smokes,” Jason breathes out, staring in frank disbelief, but the scene doesn’t change.

The giant sleeps on, undisturbed by Jason’s unceremonious arrival, laid out on what Jason would normally call a couch, if it weren’t also completely out of proportion. The worn furniture looked ridiculously oversized to fit (somewhat) around the frame of the unconscious giant.

Even more alarming, Jason soon discovers, it isn’t just the couch! As Jason stands up on shaky legs, he finds that the vast wooden surface he’d landed on was nothing other than a table, enormous for Jason, and yet a perfectly logical size for a giant to sit on.

Everything around Jason looks completely wrong. He can’t spot a single normal brick around. Everything looks strangely solid, no assembling pieces can be spotted, and the sheer scale of the place! The entire room was oversized, from the seats to the lamps, the doors, the windows, that telescope, the rug, the open bag on the floor that seems to be packed full of -

“Yikes! Blasters!” Jason exclaims without thinking, then immediately slams his hand over his mouth in horror. He prepares to run, sure the giant will rise and chase him, but the big man only shifts with a grumble. The moonlight that falls over his face with the movement reveals yet another shock to pile that Jason has already collected.

That face isn’t the face of some stranger. Under the messy dark bangs Jason’s own face stares back at him, tense even in sleep.

“Oh, double trouble,” Jason mutters in disbelief, studying the (way oversized!) stranger wearing his own face.

The uniform the giant him has on is completely unfamiliar- strangely decorated red fabric and a tangled hood, a discarded half-face mask hanging loose around his neck - but the sleeping man is definitely Jason. A Jason. Somehow.

How could this be real? Jason wonders, but even as he thinks about it, his last scrambled memories make it clear.

Calculator, the gauntlet, a portal sucking him in, the light, the endless falling. Clearly Jason hadn’t just landed a few feet away from where he’d just been talking to Oracle.

Oh. Oracle!

“O? Oracle? Do you read me?” Jason whispers into his comms hopefully, but gets no answer. Flipping through the other comm channels only gets him more static. “Batman? Nightwing? Batwoman? Oracle? Anyone? Hello??”

Nothing. Figures this freaky giant Gotham would be out of range.

The oversized place doesn’t look anything like Jason’s own city, and that sleeping giant was a just slightly familiar version of himself; the face was the same, the hair, but their hands looked different, their skin, the eye shape, the uniform. The fact the other him was a flipping giant!

So if this wasn’t Jason’s own Gotham- Where was he? Why was he here?

Jason removes his helmet with a frown, looking down at himself for clues. That’s when he notices that the strange gauntlet he’d taken off Calculator was still clasped firmly over his arm. It blinks madly back at him, colored lights powering down from their mad trip through that portal, and the letters and numbers it was flashing at Jason didn’t ring any bells.

16? Earth 16? What does that even mean?

How could there be more than one earth???

“Oh no. No, nonono, you send me back home right now!” Jason hisses at the gauntlet, warily keeping an eye on his double as he madly presses button after button, watching the colors light up crazily, only to fade back into blankness.

Nothing happens.

Jason slams at the buttons more insistingly, sure it must be the key to this trip, that he need only find a way to activate it again to get back home.

Earth 16, the screen keeps informing him, no matter how many times Jason smashes the thing with a frantic hand and jiggles his wrist in every possible direction.

The colors on the keys keep flashing up, then fading, and it’s only after minutes of a crazy hopping dance with the thing that Jason finally notices something blinking in a corner of the screen.

A percentage. A battery light, tiny and innocuous in the left corner of the screen, innocently announcing the gauntlet had 10% of power left in it.

Jason freezes, heart shrinking in fear at the thought of his only way home dying out on him, but even as he watches, the bar cheerfully grows before Jason’s wide eyes to flash a proud 11% power.

Jason only dares to breathe again when it changed again to a 12%, moving faster upwards now that Jason isn’t pressing all the thing’s buttons.

It’s powering up. It’s still working. It’s- still stuck on Jason’s freaking wrist!

“Aargh!” Jason groans, giving up the fight to get the thing off when no amount of wiggling and poking so much as shifts it.

This was not how Jason was meant to end his night. He’d been on his way back to Dick and a nice warm bed and a long, beautiful day off with his boyfriend, and now he was wearing the world’s ugliest and most inconvenient fashion accessory and stranded in some sort of weird giant world!

Flipping Calculator!!!

The bar on the gauntlet grows every so slowly to display a whopping 13% of power. Jason despairs of his life.

Of course, that is when the sweet song of a fine blade being drawn has Jason look up, only to find himself staring down the very sharp point of a beautiful and _gigantic_ sword pointed right at his face.

Now Jason _really_ despairs both of and for his life.

“DON’T DISASSEMBLE ME, I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!” Jason yelps, flipping backwards on instinct to get away from the threat. He readies his stance, hand going for his blaster, but he freezes mid-move when he finds himself staring at his squinting double who is already drawing back the sword in bewilderment.

The next minute drags on in uncomfortable silence, both Jasons studying everything there was to see about the other. One tiny and plastic, one giant and fleshy, both wore identical looks of weirded out confusion as they recognized features of themselves in the other.

“Boy? Friend?” The taller weirdly dressed Jason finally speaks, breaking the moment.

Jason blinked back, momentarily confused at both the direction and the lack of a verb in the question, before shrugging it off and taking the initiative.

“Ahem. Yeah. Well, you know him, surely. Uh- Nightwing? Beautiful, kind, likes to show off his flippy acrobatics, laughs at silly puns and likes texting emojis?” Jason tries, slowly taking a step back from his double, then another. He can’t help relaxing a little when the other man does nothing to try and stop the obvious retreat.

“Grayson,” Giant Jason confirms dully, stance relaxing in turn as he thankfully puts the oversized sword away. Jason blinks, confused at the monosyllabic nonchalant response.

Jason rarely wastes an opportunity to talk about Dickie and it’s hard to imagine a version of himself that won’t jump at the chance to interrogate someone else bringing him up so casually, no matter the strange circumstances.

Yet no forthcoming questions about Dick, or even about who Jason is or where he came from arise from there. No words at all, in fact, only more squinting and an unnervingly cold scrutiny from his giant double twin - ok, he really needs a better name than that to call the other, even in his own head.

Weirdly dressed Jason? Offensively tall Jason? Too long. Todd?

Okay, Todd.

Todd wasn’t moving to do or say anything. He didn’t even look to be breathing, except when Jason looked extremely closely at his chest. If the stillness and the silence of the other weren’t strange enough, the lack of a reaction to Jason’s presence - or existence- were a giant red warning flag about Todd’s state of mind.

Where were the questions? The jokes? The demands?

“Uh- you alright there buddy?” Jason offers uneasily, shifting his weight awkwardly when the other doesn’t answer or move. “I- I’m sorry about the intrusion by the way. I didn’t mean to barge into your home like this. It was totally that weird portal’s fault and this ugly little bracelet thingy is responsible, so I’m sure it can get me back home the same way it brought me here soon as it’s done charging up. No biggie! Pun intended. You don’t mind if I wait here, do you big guy?”

“Not home,” is all Todd says in response, with a strange wistful note in an otherwise blank statement.

Jason can’t help but worry about the strange behavior from his other self. He straightens slowly, careful to keep his hands open and in the other’s sight to avoid any misguided skewering from happening, and the other him takes it as some sort of signal to stand tall (far too tall, in Jason’s opinion) as well.

A beat of silence, then Jason really can’t take it anymore.

“Oookay. Usually I leave the chattiness up to Dickie, but it seems it’s my lot in life to take over after him, huh?” Jason prods, watching uneasily as his other self’s face twist strangely at the mention of Dick’s name. “We should, uh. We should do introductions! Huh? It’s only polite. You- you know who I am, right? You noticed the creepy resemblance?”

Todd nods solemnly once, then points at himself with a gloved hand.

“Uh, right. Yeah. Jason Todd, that’s me. And you!” Jason offers, trying to sound bright and friendly to cover up his unease. He doubts it works very well, especially when his other self grimaces strangely when hearing their name spoken aloud.

“Jason,” Todd repeats, with a strange pause between the syllables. Jason doesn’t think he’s ever been this monosyllabic, not even when he was flipping dead.

“Yeeeah,” Jason confirms, slowly, pointing slowly at himself like he’d seen the other do, then at the big man. “Jason. Jason Todd from Gotham city. Same as you, right?”

A pause. Then very, worryingly slowly, an almost hesitant nod.

“Okay. You mind if I call you Todd? Just to avoid the Jason 1 and Jason 2 thing, which sounds very unfortunate. And you can forget about calling me Jason Junior too, that would be sizeist of you.”

The joke falls about as flat as Dick’s attempts at cooking pancakes while sleep deprived. But Jason feels better taking the lead in the humor department whenever he’s uncomfortable, so he won’t let that deter him.

“Great! Okay, so Todd. Do you mind telling me where we are?” Jason tried, stealing a glance at the white and purple gauntlet that landed him in this mess. 17% it informs him cheerfully, still blinking away an unwelcome ‘Earth 16’ at him.

“Bludhaven.” Todd informs him, finally moving from his stiff at ease stance to point at the window with the telescope.

That was weird. Weirder. Heh.

“What, you into stargazing? Bludhaven isn’t the best spot for it, you know,” Jason points out helpfully, wistfully thinking of Dick laughing at his side about the constellations. What Jason wouldn’t give to have him here to smooth over this awkward exchange.

Todd just gives him an unimpressed look and nods over to the telescope again, before turning away to untie the mask that’s still hanging loose around his neck, dropping it carelessly on a side table that already holds a discarded oddly tech-looking pair of sunglasses.

He really needs to have a talk with Todd about his weird fashion choices, later. After he sees whatever is so important about that telescope.

Navigating this giant world is no easy feat, it turns out. Jason puts his helmet back on for his trek across the room and calmly runs to the edge of this table he stands in. He is very disgruntled to see how far the ground he is, but his grapple thankfully makes the descent smooth.

He makes sure to keep a wary eye on his gigantic double to avoid being trampled as he runs over to the window, trying not to be intimidated by the scale of the furniture looming above his head. When the other makes no threatening moves, Jason focuses on climbing up the telescope with his grapple, finding footholds as he goes.

Todd just watches him do it expectantly, offering no assistance. Jason is actually grateful about the careful distance and the lack of size-related jokes, even if the silence is more than a little unnerving.

Finally reaching the eye scope, Jason grins in triumph and plants both hands on the glass, looking through what, to him, looks like a full size window to the target of Todd’s scrutiny, only to realize immediately why Todd found stargazing to be a silly suggestion.

Why look longingly at the distant stars, when you can set up surveillance straight into a much more accessible goal.

Across the street was a worn, grimy warehouse rather than an apartment building. And through one of the small windows in the structure, perfectly positioned, the lens was focused front and center on-

“Is that Dick?! Hooo boy. You’re watching him. Of course you’re watching him, you’re me. Does he know you’re watching him?” Jason tried, turning around to look at his counterpart only to get a careless shrug for an answer.

Right. Okay. This is bad, probably.

Across the street, Dick is stuffing his face with a sandwich with a hand while lazily spread on his couch, other hand busy changing channels at a faster speed than normal human eyes should be able to follow. He has workout clothes on, and a towel around his neck, clear signs to Jason that he’d been doing his early morning exercise routine to the news and is planning to take his shower after breakfast.

A perfectly normal, innocuous weekend scene, if not for the fact that Jason isn’t seeing it from up close, but from a clearly carefully chosen anonymous surveillance spot set up by an alternate version of Jason himself.

What kind of dreadful earth did Jason land in that has him so separated from Dickie he needs a long-range telescope to check on him? Because surely that is what this grim, silent version of him is doing, right? Why else would he be-

“Please tell me you’re not planning on hurting him,” Jason squeaks out, horrified by the very idea.

Todd, to Jason’s very visceral relief, seems similarly outraged by the accusation, if his big frown and decisive shake of his head is any indication.

“Home,” Todd tells him simply, looking away from Jason’s worried confusion to give the telescope and the window a vague hand motion. “Grayson.”

Oh.

“Yeah,” Jason agrees softly, relaxing a little. His other self isn’t looking at him, standing awkwardly and still oh so stiffly in those strange, foreign clothes, face sad. It makes Jason feel the need to help him, even if he has no idea about the situation he’s landed into. “He’s my home too.”

The gauntlet on his wrist is barely reaching 20% charge when Jason glances at it, and that solidifies his decision. What else has he got to do while he’s stuck here anyway?

“So, I’m guessing you two aren’t on speaking terms, huh?” Jason chances, shrugging off the sharp look Todd gives him in return. “Yeah, yeah, long-distance surveillance was a big hint. Did you guys have a fight?”

An unsure shake of the head is his answer. Then Todd runs a hand through his tousled hair, a clear giveaway to his anxious state to someone that shares the same tell. Defensively crossed arms follow, and a glare sets on that eerily familiar face.

“Are you on the outs with Bruce and the family?” Jason ventures, and immediately regrets the inquiry. His double’s expression turns ugly and pained, something raw in his eyes as he stalks suddenly closer and reaches a hand out to grasp him. Jason tries to evade the grip with a drill of evasive maneuvers and even a few warning shots of his blaster, to no avail.

Todd swats his attempts to escape aside and shrugs off whatever pain Jason caused him, firmly grabbing him by the leather jacket with his gloved fingers, raising Jason to glare at him more effectively from up close.

Geez, talk about a sore subject.

But the unwanted close up of the other’s face serves to highlight one striking feature in the room’s dim lighting. Todd’s eyes look strange. A green burst of color is splattered in the center of an iris that should be solid blue, making them seem almost teal, a color too rare to go unnoticed. More importantly, a color Jason immediately knows the source of.

The pieces of the puzzle click into place then, and it’s not looking good. Those eyes, the strange clothes, the choice of a sword for a weapon, the silence and that terrible distance between Todd and his Dick, when Dick has always been the one sure source of light in Jason’s life.

Who had the capability and the nerve to take advantage of a dead son of Batman, only to steal him away from his home?

“Someone brought you back to life, didn’t they?” Jason demands, despite the surety that he’s about to be attacked. He has to do something. He has to warn Dick if he’s stumbled into some sort of plot by Ra’s Al Ghul that involves using Todd against his family! “You died, same as me! But you didn’t just wake up, you got thrown into that stinky pit!”

“Talia’s revenge.” Todd admits, no emotion in the words. Other than the snarl in his face, he does nothing to attack Jason as he held him up like a little flailing bug. He just let him dangle, uselessly struggling to free himself. “Killed. Unavenged. Replaced.”

“Oh yeah? Crime doesn’t stop because you’re mourning, pal! I’m sure glad Tim was there to help if you weren’t around. Do they even know about you being alive? Has Dick seen you?” Jason shouts in frustration, trying to shrug off his jacket to get free, only for Todd to deposit him without ceremony into his open palm, no longer restraining him.

They stared at each other for a beat, both tense, before Todd’s whole neutral expression collapsed into a mask of rage and sadness so deep, it snuffed Jason’s righteous anger right out of his chest.

Oh, this was terrible. What kind of world would keep Jason apart from Dick for this long? He’d died when he was a teenager and came back not long after, straight into his Dickie’s warm arms. But this man had woken up in a viper’s nest and still only looked in on Dick from afar.

And Dick! Dick had been a mess when Jason had come back in his own world, wretchedly sad and lost until he had Jason there to take care of and be supported in return. They’d had to work together to knock some sense back into Bruce and get the family to heal. What had happened to his family in this world without him around for years, with Dick living alone doing who knows what?

“Escape.” Todd tells him, breaking into Jason’s train of thought. “Escape, evade. Hide.”

“From Dick?!” Jason flails his arms to show how stupid a plan that is, but Todd is back to looking at him like he’s dumb. Rude.

“Mast- From Ra’s. Talia.” Todd confesses, composing his expression back into that unsettling blank expression. Then he tilts his head to the telescope again, to the perfect view into Dick’s home life, from a safe distance. “Protect.”

“Oh,” Jason sighs, slumping in defeat. That certainly sounds like one of his type of plans. Evaluate the risks, plan ahead, keep away until the time is right to reveal the game to all the players. Keep the advantage on his side.

_“Drama queen,” Dick laughs at him every time Jason surprises him with something, circumventing Dick’s own paranoid defenses via careful scheming for a good cause. Usually it was for their date nights, but birthdays, spontaneous bouquets and the occasional romantic day off were always an option._

_“You love it,” Jason laughs back, kissing his forehead, his cheek, his lips, smile to smile, happy to have pulled off his tricks._

_Dick slings his arms around Jason’s neck and nuzzles their heads together, stepping in close to squeeze him tight and safe. _

_“I sure do,” Dick will sigh, sweet smelling hair brushing Jason’s cheeks as his lover sighs. “But you don’t have to go to all this effort every time, Jay. I love planning things together too!”_

“Okay. How about this? New plan!” Jason proposes, striking a pose with his arms spread wide and a big grin on his face, straight out of Dick’s manual of persuasiveness.

Todd’s expression doesn’t look very open to alternative plans, but Jason carries on with his proposal as if he hadn’t noticed the skepticism.

“I should only be around to help you out for a bit, right? This gauntlet is charging up and time is short, blah, blah, blah. So, what do you say, we leave the tormented shadowy protector thing on Bruce’s corner and we go up to Dickie for a hug, huh? He looks lonely over there!”

This world’s Dick did look lonely, in the glimpse Jason had caught of him. He’d looked pale and tired in the creepily HD sightline of Todd’s surveillance lenses. No smile born of an endorphin rush from his exercise, no obvious sign he was even tasting the food in his mouth. Just mechanical motions to sustain his body, a routine Jason has seen Dickie maintain when he’s running on fumes.

Todd was already shaking his head for an answer, expression turning cold, but Jason wasn’t done.

“You’re not protecting him, you know,” Jason said, taking a running leap from Todd’s open palm and flipping in the air to land safely away from him in the windowsill. From there it was a grapple and two jumps to reach the arm of the couch Todd had been sleeping on, lacking blankets or comfort, same as this world’s Dick was in a grim little warehouse across the street.

Geez, these two clearly needed Jason’s help whether they knew it or not.

“You’re protecting yourself,” Jason continued, grateful that the voice modificator in his helmet hides his breathlessness from the other. “Staying away means you don’t find out how they react, right? You don’t have to face it if they don’t want you back.”

The answer he gets is less verbal than it is primal, a growl, an instinctive sound of warning and protest that raises Jason’s hackles, but he doesn’t let it show, even as Todd moves smoothly into a battle stance across the room. From the outside, they probably look ridiculous, posturing at each other like there’s not a size difference of about 40 times Jason’s size between them.

“Dick Grayson will _always_ want you back!” Jason shouts in frustration, angry that any version of him would doubt even that much about Dick’s heart.

Bruce can be another story, Jason knows. But Dick? Jason can’t imagine a Dick that doesn’t need his family and their love like he needs to breathe.

“Dick needs you, Todd. He always needs family, and Bruce sucks at being that for him! That’s our job. Alfred’s, ours, Tim’s, the girls’. C’mon, you’ve met him, right? Dick doesn’t know how to stop loving anyone, even when he should!”

“Not alone,” Todd somehow manages to argue back with just those words, as stubborn as Jason knows himself to be. He’s obviously referring to Dick, who he’s probably spied with all sorts of people through his creepy stalker routine.

“No? Who does he patrol the city with, huh?” Jason challenges, crossing his arms. “Who watches his back and makes sure he sleeps and eats right without overworking himself to death? I didn’t see signs of anyone else in that warehouse.”

“I watch.” Todd growls, scowling and restlessly pacing. Jason recognizes his own tells in the man and can’t help but give Dickie a mental apology for past arguments between them. Jason already hates arguing with himself after a single attempt at it.

“You watch,” Jason mocks, lifting his chin up challengingly to meet Todd’s stormy glare. “Do you help? Comfort? Listen to his worries? Take him out of his head sometimes, offer him a night off? A meal? A hug?”

Get a hug and some comfort of your own, Jason doesn’t say, knowing himself better than that.

“He has. Team. Mentors. Friends! Replacement! _Bruce_.” Each listed item gets an extra dose of venom added to it, until Bruce’s name is almost unrecognizable from the way Todd spits it out. Yikes. So much to unpack here, so little time.

37% the gauntlet on his wrist informs him, unconcernedly taking its sweet time while Jason tries to get his alternate self to see some sense before he can try to go back home.

This must be some cosmic punishment for all the grief he’s given Tim and Damian over the years, Jason is sure of it.

“Okay, sure, Nightwing has those,” Jason acknowledges, knowing the codename distinction doesn’t slip by Todd’s notice. “Is Dick ever weak with them? I mean, you’ve obviously been watching him for a while now. This set-up isn’t new. When was the last time you saw Dick be off duty around those people you mentioned? No capes, no training, no work. Just Dick. When was it?”

Silence. Todd has his arms crossed again, face stoic, unmoved.

Jason isn’t fooled.

Seconds tick by, then a full minute. Two. The gauntlet is almost at 40% charge by the time Jason spots Todd start to bite at his lips, as his left foot begins to tap against the rug.

Bingo.

A sigh follows. A slow forming pissed-off frown. Todd’s face is slowly turning a dull shade of red.

Hallelujah!

“Dangerous!” Todd shouts, pointing at himself with a sudden dramatic flair that makes Jason have to hide a laugh at his own expense.

_Drama queen_, laughs the Dickie in Jason’s memories, and the thought of him so far away makes longing burn bright in Jason’s chest. But one problem at a time. He has to help here, since he’s around to do it and this universe’s version of himself is clearly hopeless. Not that he expects this version of Dickie to be much better, truth be told.

That’s why they’ll always need each other. That much Jason knows for sure.

“He can handle it,” Jason assures him, projecting nothing but confidence at the other. “He’s Nightwing, remember? It’s himself he needs you to protect him from, and you can’t do that from over here.”

Todd makes a noise that sounds exasperated, but defeat is already slumping those broad shoulders and Jason smiles in relief, eager to see the look on Dick’s face when Todd shows himself.

“Home, remember?” Jason prods, taking his helmet off again to make the point come across with no barriers between them (well, aside from his domino, but Jason’s not taking that off just to make a point). “He needs that from you too.”

“Nosy.” Todd accuses him petulantly, striking eyes narrowed into slits and a finger pointed childishly at him.

Jason lets himself laugh, exhausted from the argument and the portal and everything that’s happened since he beat Calculator earlier tonight. And the adventure’s far from done, it seems, in this world or in Jason’s own.

“Right.” Jason offers smugly, pointing at himself and putting his helmet back on now that he’s sure he’s won. “Now let’s go! My stupid gauntlet is almost half charged up and I gotta be here to make sure you follow my excellent advise. Dick’s waiting!”

Todd doesn’t look any happier, but he does grudgingly pick up Jason’s small form and places him gently on his shoulder with a stern.

“Hold on.”

Jason grips at the silky fabric of Todd’s outfit and immediately remembers another grievance to chatter about as Todd moves to gather up his things to leave the apartment, stealing another glance at Dick through his telescope as he goes.

Dick is still on that ratty couch, dressed now and with wet hair. That same blank, drawn expression on his face as he reads something from a holoscreen. Jason silently promises he’ll at least see this version of him smile once before he leaves their universe behind.

“What’s with the outfit, anyway Big Guy? Has no one told you they make really cool leather jackets in your size?”

***

Jason’s main lesson from this foray into alternate universes so far is that he’s never, ever going to make fun of Dickie’s lack of patience when it comes to dealing with Jason’s stubborn streak.

Todd barely talks, and yet they manage to argue almost every step of the way to Dick’s shady current abode; they disagree on everything, from what they’ll reveal of Todd’s not so miraculous resurrection, to Jason’s presence, to how to face Dick, how fast to walk there, whether or not Todd should stick close to Dick after the big reveal is over with and why leather jackets are the superior garment.

(They just are, okay? Obviously. Geez.)

In the end, they make it there both grumpy and tired of each other’s various (wrong) opinions.

Somehow, in the midst of their bickering, the fact that they’re about to turn Dick’s entire life on its head doesn’t sink into both their minds until the very second Todd has already knocked on Dick’s door just to shut Jason up.

Both Jasons tense in unison as dread dawns in the ensuing pause, but it’s far too late to back out of the course of action they’ve settled on.

Dick throws open the door with a concerned frown, undoubtedly shocked he has any sort of visitors in his little Bludhaven hideaway and Jason sees him register who’s there at his door with the same sinking feeling one would get from watching a slow-motion car crash.

Dick’s face pales so dramatically, Jason feels Todd make an aborted hand motion, as if to catch him from a faint. But then those features harden into a mask more impenetrable than Nightwing’s. It’s a clear sign Jason has to intervene before this reunion turns into a disaster from sheer miscommunication and Bat-brand stubbornness.

“You wear Flash themed boxer shorts when you’re sad!” Jason shouts frantically, waving his arms to be seen on his perch on Todd’s shoulder. “Superman ones when it’s a good day. Batman ones only when you’re pissed at Bruce!”

Dick’s too-wide eyes move from their laser focus running over Todd’s features to reluctantly settle on him, and then the ocean blue depths get impossibly wider.

“What is this?” Dick demands, and Jason cringes on his behalf. He’s certain Dick meant for those words to sound more authoritative than the ragged whisper they came out as. “What kind of sick jok-”

“Grayson,” Todd interrupts, somehow putting a world of meaning behind that one word.

The utterance seems to stop Dick cold as he swings his head back to stare at Todd with half-wild eyes. Even from the side, Dick’s gaze looks to Jason to be overflowing with everything from denial to rage to a tiny wretched hope, at odds with the wary, defensive stance his body has frozen in. Jason can see his hand turning white from its tightening grip on the door.

“Hey Dick, look, it’s real. Not a meta, not a clone, not a trap. Well, it was _meant_ as a trap, really, you know how those tricky Al Ghuls think, but To- uh, your Jason here, is a stubborn one,” Jason tries to explain a little in the tense silence between them when Todd seems unwilling to say anything further.

On his part, Dick still isn’t reacting, which Jason tentatively chooses to take as a good thing, as he’s not attacking them (yet) or hurling more accusations (for now). But Jason’s own heart hurts from watching the pain and the terror mar Dick’s beautiful face just from looking at a version of Jason.

“A pit,” Dick says, three eternities later, still sounding off. Robotic. The word wasn’t a question. He still hasn’t unfrozen the rest of his body, tense and defensive and terribly vulnerable; Jason dreads to think of how he could have been hurt if this meeting had been a real attack by someone using Jason’s image against Dick. “The-the island, the man I fought, that was you. Y-you’re alive. Jason. Jason?”

By the time the name becomes a choked, whispered question, Todd is already moving forward without needing to be prodded by Jason, and that’s how Jason knows he’s made the right calls for these two.

Dick’s tension melts from his body in seconds, his usual fluid grace in tatters, as he stumbles forward clumsily only to be caught by Todd’s already reaching arms.

Jason has to leap down from his perch on Todd’s shoulder to land on the red hood hanging loose on the back of Todd’s outfit just to get out of the way of Dick’s sudden desperate clinging hug around Todd’s broad shoulders.

From his new perch, Jason still has a perfect close-up view of the way Dick’s expression has collapsed on itself in a flood of disbelieving mingle of joy and sorrow so strong, it has already reduced him to messy, out of control tears, something Dick almost never lets himself do, whether alone or with witnesses.

“Jason. Jason. Jason, you’re alive,” Dick keeps half-sobbing, unmindful of the clumsy comforting nonsense that Todd is babbling back at him, hardly words and more like sounds meant to soothe Dick’s obvious distress. “I missed you, I’m sorry, Jason. Jason. It’s you, you’re _back_, you came back-”

“Home,” Todd is telling Dick among his comforting noises, his head moving like he’s either whispering the words into Dick’s skin or possibly kissing it to soothe him, it’s impossible to tell from Jason’s position in the hoodie hanging behind Todd’s shoulders.

Jason looks away with the scene as well as he’s able, sniffling back his own sympathetic tears from remembering Dick’s loving care and relief after his own return to life. Granted, he had not been brought back by some villain behind Dickie’s back; Jason came back right in front of Dick’s nose, in fact, and that had been rough enough for Dick to deal with at the time.

Jason can’t imagine how good it feels for these two to be in each other’s arms again after such a long separation.

Considering how tightly it looks like Dick is clinging to Todd’s broader frame and how it looks like Todd is trying to burrow into Dick’s very skin in return, he can’t imagine either man being willing to separate from each other for long after this, whatever grumpy monosyllabic argument Todd tried to raise to the contrary on the way over here.

61%, the gauntlet blinks at Jason from his wrist when he tries to fiddle with it to distract himself from the private moment the two are having right in front of him.

Then, Jason’s perch swings when Todd makes an abrupt move and Jason has to scramble to hold on. Dick lets out a breathy little “oh” from above him, and that’s when Jason realizes that Todd just picked Dick up like a kid, like he’s light, and it makes him smile to himself even as he has to struggle not to get dropped on his head.

Todd walks all three of them inside Dick’s safehouse, kicking the door shut behind them with a loud slam.

Jason is very grateful when they get close enough to Dick’s furniture that he can grapple away to safety, away from the mess of entangled limbs Dick and Todd have become as they sink into Dick’s couch together, still mumbling reassurances and half sobbed exclamations at each other in an endless loop.

It’s an emotional scene, private and lovely, and Jason’s a little embarrassed to witness it, but also undoubtedly smug for making it happen. Now this little detour from his home universe hasn’t been for nothing.

Look what he’s accomplished here for this version of him and his boyfriend! Dick would be so proud of him if he could see it, that he wouldn’t let Jason out of bed for a full week for a job well done.

Jason absolutely plans to tell Dickie all about it as soon as the flipping gauntlet finishes charging and sends him home.

69%, the gauntlet reads by the time Dick manages to claw himself away from the wet spot he’s made of Todd’s shoulder, only then seeming to remember the other shock he’s had before he accepted the reality of Todd’s resurrection.

Dick’s face is blotchy with tears and flushed, hair tangled from Todd’s fingers running carefully through it, but the look he settles on Jason’s small form is 100% Nightwing again, even as his hands remain stubbornly clinging to Todd like a kid afraid to have his toy taken away.

Jason’s heart hurts from how much he loves Dick Grayson, whatever the universe he hails from. He smiles brightly at him in response to his scrutiny and waves, comfortably sitting on the other end of the couch from the couple still clinging to each other.

“Who is this?” Dick asks hoarsely, eyes turning to Todd again like they’re being pulled by a magnet. Jason’s not offended. It’s obvious Dick wouldn’t ever look away from the tall version of him if he could help it at the moment.

“Jason Todd, it’s lovely to meet you!” Jason chirps cheerfully, smiling wider when Dick gives him a skeptical look that slowly morphs into his natural curiosity, so familiar on a face that’s larger and fleshier and younger than the one Jason is used to back home, but still so close to the man he loves that he can’t help but be smitten by it.

“I’m not from this universe. Had a bit of an accident with this thing,” Jason wiggles the arm with the gauntlet in it helpfully, trying not to sound too grumpy with the explanation. “Calculator’s fault, if you know him. I’m just waiting for the thing to power up again to go home to my Dickie. Hitched a ride with the big guy over there, since we were close by.”

“Friend,” Todd says, and that makes Dick blink, then give a slow, tentative smile at Jason in response. Jason is downright honored at the appellative, even if Todd is sending him another grumpy glare over Dick’s shoulder as if to highlight how grudgingly it’s been granted.

Really, Jason himself isn’t this rude, he’s sure.

“Parallel universes, huh? That’s new. Never seen a being like you before, yet you’re obviously Jason somehow. This is so trippy.” Dick muttered, shaking his head as if to clear it. “Sure you don’t need help to get home? That- that bracelet thing-”

“Gauntlet,” Jason corrected inanely, irked by the thought of the wretched thing that sent him here as some sort of jewel.

“Uh- right. Gauntlet.” Dick obviously humored him. “It’ll just send you back?”

“It better!” Jason growled, waving his trapped wrist like he can threaten the thing into behaving. He doesn’t want to think about the possibility of not getting home. “If it brought me to your Jason there, it’s bound to be able to send me back to Dick!”

“Far be it from me to doubt your toy-looking technology there,” Dick offered, raising his hands when Jason frowned at him. “Just thought I’d offer a hand. You brought my Jason to my door, it’s only- wait. Wait, what did you mean earlier, when you said you two were close-by?” Dick asks, sharp mind already drawing back from the shock of the news to focus on facts. “Your gauntlet just dropped you near me?”

Jason just shrugs at him.

“Ask your home-grown version, I only landed by his side on account of my universe hopping mishap.” Jason says, smiling innocently when Dick whips around to give Todd a suspicious look that makes the other man splutter in place.

“Jason? What were you doing in Bludhaven? Were you looking around for me?” Dick asks and really, Jason doesn’t meant to laugh. Honest, he doesn’t. The snort just slips out and by the time he realizes it came from him, Dick is already looking alarmed and Todd murderous across from him.

When no explanation attempt is made and Jason can see Dick is about to pull away from Todd entirely, Jason sighs down at the 77% percent of charge in his stupid universe shifting gauntlet. The thing has spared him no awkwardness today, why would it start now.

“He _was_ here for you,” Jason prompts diplomatically, giving Todd a look that the other man seems set on ignoring. Fine, then. “Stalking you, to be precise. From that building over there with a sightline into your safehouse. He’s been at it for a while now, from the looks of his nest.”

“Protecting!” Todd immediately exclaims, entirely defensively, and Jason lets himself feel smug all over again. He told Todd his plan was stupid. Dick very obviously agrees if the way his face goes tight and angry is any indication.

“Y-you mean you were just watching me? Jason?” Dick prods, physically pulling back when Todd doesn’t answer beyond a neutral look. “You were set up in here and didn’t tell me you were back? For how lo-- what were you even doing-?”

“Protecting,” Todd repeats, softer, and this time he reaches out to touch Dick’s still damp cheek unbearably gently.

Dick’s body makes an aborted motion to evade the touch, almost instinctive, but it’s clear to Jason that he can’t seem the way he leans into Todd’s hand instead.

Jason privately thinks Todd is extremely lucky that Dick is still too floored and relieved at the moment to let that famous rage of his overtake him, but Jason can foresee a metric ton of groveling already looms over Todd’s immediate future once Dick’s had the time to process the entire situation.

“But you’re here now. With me,” Dick insists, half a question, half a demand that Todd immediately nods to. Jason nods encouragingly at him from behind Dick’s back. He _better_ be. “You’re back now. I still can’t believe it. Does anyone else know that you’re-?”

“With _you_,” Todd repeats, the emphasis on the words unmistakable. Dick drifts off into silence at the tone, something torn and fragile on his face that Todd obviously saw as well, because he didn’t stop talking. “For you, Dick.”

“You’re not leaving?”Dick asked softly, seemingly despite himself and Todd drew him down to rest their foreheads together for a second before he answers sofly, simple words made meaningful.

“With you.” Is all Todd says, but Jason can see Dick relax from untold burdens at the sound of them, at the promise in them.

85% the gauntlet reads now, making Jason smile in relief. These two will be okay together, he’s sure of it. And in only a little more time, Jason can go home to tell his own Dickie all about it.

Dick clearing his throat awkwardly draw Jason away from thoughts of his bed and his lovely boyfriend, and he looks up to find Dick and Todd sitting side by side now instead of toppled into each other, proper and serious if you ignored the way they held hands like a lifetime.

“Anyway,” Dick says, face rueful. “I meant to offer you League assistance if you need it. Or my team’s, if you’d rather. Maybe Cyborg can take a look at your gauntlet there and see if it’s working properly to help you home. I could try to run a quick diagnostic here, but I am a far better hacker than I am a mechanic.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Jason offers hopefully, glancing at the 88% on the display screen. “I mean, if my jump fails then by all means. I just want to get back as soon as possible, and I don’t think your team can make it here before it’s charged again and I’m ready to try.”

“Alright. Let’s call it Plan B and hope you don’t need us then!” Dick offers brightly, a beautiful, bright smile on his face as he playfully nudges Todd shoulder with his, clearly relishing the contact. Jason smiles back just to see it in place.

“Oh, I’d hate to be the reason to keep the two of you apart after all the work I just went through to get the pair of you together,” Jason teased, gleeful when he saw Dick turn a bright shade of red, Todd at his side already grumbling a wordless protest with a blush of his own. Neither of them, Jason noticed smugly, made any attempt to let go of the other’s hand.

Honestly, for all their troubled angst, these two are downright adorable.

93% and climbing, that dreaded percentage bar was climbing faster now that it was close to the end. Jason could have cried in relief.

“You need to watch out for each other.” Jason told them sternly, like a dad or something, but it was solid advice to give out, just in case. “Ra’s Al Ghul’s lot doesn’t give up easily.”

“We’ll be ready,” Dick nods back, every inch the confident leader, and even from a different Dick, it makes Jason proud. Todd nods as well, his mouth a determined line, but his eyes show he means the vow, unspoken as it is.

Todd has to stay to watch out for Dick from his side, and not from the distant shadows. If Jason accomplished that much with his trip, then it was a worthy one.

That doesn’t change the excited delight Jason feels when he watches his gauntlet finally, _finally_ reach 100% of charge, colors swirling back to life merrily along the buttons like an invitation to press them.

“It’s time,” He tells his two witnesses, and nods at them. “Be safe.”

“Get home,” Todd counters, meaningfully looking at Dick as he does. Jason’s smile stretches wider at the thought of seeing Dickie again at just the press of those buttons.

“That’s the plan!” Jason says, taking one last look at this world doubles before reaching out and slamming the buttons on the gauntlet with a flourish, no sequence or pattern to mimic, as the prior trip had been activated by complete accident.

Just as it had happened before, Jason sees the gauntlet react with a wild display of colors, buttons lighting-up brightly to signal their readiness as the machine hums with life. This time, the sudden opening of a portal of swirling light and impossible gravity is a welcome sight to Jason, and he scrambles to his feet in a hurry, feeling the pull of the vortex.

“Hey Todd! Tell him about the telescope!” he shouts to his double, cheerfully waving at the scowl he receives, before Jason leaps right into the brightly shining portal, certain that this time the dizzying jump will be taking him home.


	3. Earth-38 (Teen Titans) by elwon

Jason falls through the burst of light, his stomach clenches unpleasantly, and then he lands with on his knees. Did he make it home? Looking around, blinking away the bright afterimages of his travel, he can see that, no. Of course he hasn’t made it home. He checks his gauntlet and it displays Earth-38 in glowing red.

He stares at the greasy metal under his feet and he wonders if this world’s Jason is around somewhere close. He always seems to land close to his other versions, as if his gauntlet is drawn to them. It makes him wonder if that’s why he’s having such trouble getting home. There’s no him there for the gauntlet to be drawn too. He wants to see his Dickie again, wants to hear him sing that stupid ‘do you want to build a baby?’ song again. (And maybe when he gets home he’ll have time to think about whether he really does want to.) He forces himself to stop thinking about that, and set to finding himself.

It takes a whole three seconds for him to do that; all he has to do it turn around and look up. He stares up at the black clad figure with a red cross mark on his chest, the same logo on his grey gloves and a pure white skull on his mask, with a matching eye catching bright red ‘X’ on his forehead. Knowing it’s this world’s version of him instantly, Jason glances around the room he’s in. It seems to be an old school 50’s style diner; with tiled floors and big round booths, neon lights scattered on the walls and the smell of fries and milkshakes pervading the air.

This world’s version of himself is slouching back in the booth, one arm thrown up over the back of it, as if he owns the place; and the other loosely draped over this earth’s Robin’s shoulders. Jason himself is standing on a metal tray holding a half eaten pizza, crumpled napkins and half-drunk milkshakes behind him. A big bowl of fries is to his left, and his stomach grumbles loudly. When did he get so damn hungry?

Robin blinks repeatedly, obvious even through his mask, reaching over to poke a finger at Jason. Jason dodges it, nearly slipping on the greasy metal tray beneath his feet.

“It’s a tiny man! Wait, is Toyman in Jump City? You should have told me, X.” Robin leans forward inspecting Jason. It’s obviously Dick from his voice, which is reassuring, but ‘X’ as a codename for Jason is a new one.

“Not that I know of.” X says lazily. “Also that looked more like an inter-dimensional portal than a teleportation one. Kinda surprised you didn’t recognise it.”

“Hey, it’s more likely that Toyman would build a teleporting device than a tiny, tiny man travelling dimensions turns up on our table, OK?” Robin says, poking X in the side with vigour.

“Rude.” X sighs, turning his attention from Robin’s finger pressed up against his chest and to Jason.

“Hi.” Jason says, watching how the eyeholes in both X and Robin’s masks narrows as he speaks. “I’m Jason Todd, Red Hood of Earth-52. You must be this earth’s version of me.”

“I must be, huh?” X says leaning back, sounding amused. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

“You are though. I always land near another version of myself, and Robin’s clearly...” Jason pauses looking around to see if anyone’s listening. They aren’t, so he continues. “Robin’s _clearly_ Dick Grayson.”

“What?” Dick says, and Jason can see him gearing up to deny it.

“It’s OK. You’re always the first Robin.” Jason hops up to sit on the serviette dispenser, so that he doesn’t get a crick in his neck staring up at them. “Well, nearly always the first. Like, 95% always the first.”

“You know, little dude, it’s not cool to out people’s secret identities. They’re secret for a reason.” X says, his lenses dipping down to show that he’s frowning.

“It’s the quickest way to prove I’m who I say I am.” Jason shrugs. “Besides we all know who each is already, don’t we?”

“He’s got a point, X.” Robin turns to him, wry smile on his face. “I mean, I have seen your face. You’ve seen mine. _We know each other’s names_.”

“Considering how many times we’ve touched mouths, kid, I’d hope so.” X snorts, knocking his forehead on Robin’s gently. It’s oddly intimate, and something inside Jason both clenches and relaxes at seeing it. It’s nice to see that this Dick and Jason are most probably together too, but it also makes him miss his Dickie fiercely. He wants to rest their foreheads together and look into his eyes, and just _be_. But he can’t, because he’s on back on Earth-52, and Jason’s stuck on Earth-38 until his gauntlet recharges again.

“X!” Robin gasps out, sounding strangely scandalised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He pulls back to glare at Red X, and the tension between the two of them ratchets up. Jason wonders if this is what it’s like when he and Dick disagree back home while the others are present. It’s not nice at all.

“Oh hey, about that?” Jason says, feeling uncomfortable at the idea they might be about to argue. “I’ve not come across a Red X before, and I’ve been to a few earths already. How’d you come up with it?”

“Oh, that was me.” Robin blurts out, looking grateful for the distraction.

“Really? You’re just going to tell him without checking anything?” X says, shaking his head. “That’s not like you, kid.”

Robin holds up his wrist, showing off a display. “I’ve been scanning him since he got here. He’s who and what he says he is.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” X says, one lens enlarging like he’s raising an eyebrow under his full head mask.

“I don’t _have_ to tell you everything.” Robin shrugs lightly. “Even though I usually do; I _don’t_ have to.”

“True, I guess. I don’t tell you about my work.” X says after an awkward pause.

“So, Red X?” Jason interjects before things get worse.

“So, a while back, a madman was threatening Jump City; and I had to stop him. So I became Red X, a ruthless thief who could get closer to the madman than Robin ever could. But I didn’t tell my teammates; and my plan didn’t work. I almost lost my life, and my friends.” Robin shifts under X’s arm, looking guilty. “A couple of months later, this guy stole my suit that I’d locked away for safekeeping.”

“Yeah, I did. Was surprisingly easy too.” X scoffs, stretching out a little. “I keep telling you to up your security. Personally, I think it looks much cooler on me.”

“Shush, I’m telling a story!” Robin swipes at X, pouting slightly.

“Sorry. Do continue.” X says with a rolling wave.

“So, he’s running around town, making a nuisance of himself and gets onto the Titans’ radar. And then he runs out of power for the suit, so he has to steal some Xenothium. We debated his identity for a while until I realised it didn’t really matter.” Robin leans forward, voice dropping in volume. “Xenothium’s an unstable substance, and it powers all the really cool gadgets I added to the suit. But it’s really rare, and people want it. A lot. And they’re willing to do really bad things to get it.”

“That’s true.” X nods. “I have to steal all my Xenothium. I can’t afford it otherwise.”

“Don’t tell me that!” Robin groans, slapping a hand to his forehead in frustration.

“What? I’m a thief. Are you’re gonna buy it for me instead? Gonna call daddybats for a loan?” X says dryly. When Robin doesn’t answer him, he continues. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Anyway, this jerk tries to steal the only Xenothium in the city, and the Titans try to stop him, but another bad guy got in on the action.” Robin says forcefully ignoring the mention of Batman. “He kidnapped the Titans and got the Xenothium, so it was up to us to save my teammates and the city!”

“Which I did begrudgingly. I just wanted the Xenothium.” X adds, dropping his hand from the back of the booth to rest on Robin’s shoulder, squeezing it gently in apology.

“But you were pretty good at playing the hero.” Robin says with a small smile.

“I don’t like playing the big villain, or playing the hero either.” X says, and the weird movement his mask’s lenses make looks like he’s rolling his eyes to Jason. “Doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”

“So you saved the city, the Titans, and got together?” Jason says grinning wildly. This is such a cute get together story. He’s going to have to remember this one to tell Dickie when he gets home.

“Ha, no!” Red X snorts. “He stole my belt, and I did a runner. It took two whole days for me to steal my belt back.”

“Wait really?” Robin looks at X, surprised. “I thought it took you months to get through my security again. You said that!”

“I lied to make you feel better, kid.” X says with obvious amusement. “There was this whole thing with Ding Dong Daddy stealing a briefcase of Robin’s, and putting it up as the prize in a road race. At first I was going to steal it to sell on. But then Robin saved me from a nasty crash in the race, and I helped him by taking out the other competitors.”

“And you got together in a rush of endorphins after you won!” Jason says gleefully. It’s not as cute as saving the city together but it’s still pretty good.

“...No.” X says, shaking his head. “I still don’t actually know what was in that briefcase, either.”

“It’s... My photo album. Pictures of my parents and the circus. Some of Bruce and Alfred, and some of us back when you were Robin too.” Dick says quietly, looking up at Red X solemnly. X looks back at him for a long moment, and it feels like something heavy and important passes between them.

“Oh. Damn, Dickie.” X breathes out, and Jason has to look away for a moment, because this feels too private to be witnessed.

Staring around the rest of the diner, Jason notices a table in the far corner, filled with four individual dressed rather strangely. They seem to be trying to avoid notice, but for some reason, their fake moustaches, sunglasses, hats and big coats only calls attention to them instead. Partly because the weather outside the diner seems to be the perfect summer day; and partly because Jason thinks those four wouldn’t know how to be subtle if their lives depended on it. He hopes they’re henchmen about to be arrested, if only because he doesn’t want what is clearly a date for Red X and Robin to be interrupted by amateur henchmen.

“X.” Robin says, just as quietly. Somewhere in the background a plate or glass gets dropped, causing a crashing sound and the moment is broken.

“Yeah, so we got together a while after that. We ran into each other completely randomly at the movies. Robin dropped his drink and his ticket got ruined, and I felt bad for him so I bought him replacements, and things just happened after that.” X says with a one shouldered shrug, and a surprisingly soft voice.

“How did your team take that? Were they happy for you?” Jason tilts his head, watching them both tense up for a moment. Which is interesting, they’re probably keeping their relationship a secret, then.

“They have no idea.” Robin says sadly. X shifts in his seat, staring out at the diner with narrowed eyes, over at the table Jason had been looking at earlier. He snorts softly and Jason turns to look at them again. They’ve all ducked behind menus, and it’s screaming obvious now that they’re following X and Robin.

“Yeah... They _totally_ have no idea.” X drawls, and Jason thinks if he gets any more sarcastic he might actually keel over. X is still staring at that table of disguised henchmen, so they probably aren’t henchmen after all.

“Oh.” Jason says awkwardly, wondering if he should encourage them to be open and happy or not.

“Anyway, enough about us.” X says, leaning in slightly. “Your turn, little dude. How and why are you popping onto our table in the middle of our date?”

“Yeah! Tell us all about yourself.” Robin says with a smile. “Are all the people on your earth as small as you?”

“I’m considered pretty tall for my earth actually!” Jason says, puffing up his chest. Dick’s not quite as tall as him. “Everyone’s roughly the same size as me though, yes.”

“And you’re leaping through universes?” X says suspiciously, one eye larger than the other.

“I was fighting a supervillian, the Calculator. He smacked this gauntlet onto my arm, and next thing I know I’m sucked into this portal and into a new universe.” Jason sighs, waving his arm up at them. “Which sucks, because I was on my way home to my Dick. I was looking forward to cuddling.”

“You... Uh.” Robin blinks at him. “You live with your Robin?”

“He’s Nightwing now. But yeah, we’ve been together a few years.” Jason imagines Dick’s face, the way the moonlight hits his hair when they’re on patrol, and then the way he smiles, slow and small and private when Jason does something nice for him, just because he loves him and can. “We moved in together last year though.”

“Oh. Wow. So that’s serious between you?” Robin taps at his chin, giving X sidelong glances that X pretends not to see.

“Yeah. He’s trying to persuade me to have a baby, I’m trying to argue him down to a dog...” Jason forces his thoughts away from the memory of Dick singing ‘do you want to build a baby~’.

“Kids!” Robin squeaks, looking as terrified of serious commitment as only a teenage boy can be.

“Well, we’re older than you guys, you’re what? Sixteen or eighteen?” Jason guesses. “We’re in our twenties. So yeah, kids.”

“Huh.” X says thoughtfully, flicking his gaze between Robin and Jason. “So are you randomly hopping or is there a pattern to it?”

“Totally random.” Jason hops of the serviette dispenser and walks over the table closer to Red X. “See, I get a display telling me where I am and how long it’ll take for the gauntlet to recharge ready for the next jump, but I’m stuck waiting around for it with no control. I have to hope the next earth I go to is home.”

“That’s a terrible design.” X mutters as he leans down to get a better look at the gauntlet resting on Jason’s arm.

“When I get back home, I’m gonna break the Calculator down to his bricks and laugh while I’m doing it. I might even build a Godzilla to stomp on them afterwards.” Jason grumbles, holding still while X traces one fingertip lightly over the display on the gauntlet.

“How long does it take to charge?” X presses lightly at one of the buttons, but absolutely nothing happens. Jason thinks they’re probably there for decoration or distraction only.

“It varies. Sometimes it’s a day or two; sometimes it’s a couple of hours. Once it was four whole days, but that one wasn’t so bad. I ended up on a beach and eat pineapple and coconut until it was time to jump.” Jason shrugs, and Red X leans back in his seat.

“Did that scan you did earlier pick up anything helpful?” X says to Robin, who checks his own wrist computer.

“It runs on something very close to Xenothium... I think the difference is down to the slight changes between universes.” Robin says, flicking through the readings. “You could probably give it a boost, help charge it.”

“I could.” X says, but it’s obvious it’s not an offer. He’s only agreeing that it’s possible. Jason stares up at him and wonders what happened to his life to make him like this. Jason himself would have offered if their positions were reversed. I mean, he would have grumbled and pretended to be unwilling, but he’d still have agreed when first asked. X isn’t doing that.

“...Are you going to?” Robin asks after a long pause. His tone really reminds Jason of Alfred trying to persuade Bruce to do something sensible. It’s half resignation that he’s going to be ignored and half ‘don’t be a dick, Master Bruce’.

“Hey, I need all the Xenothium I’ve got. I can’t go around giving it away because you’re pouting at me.” X shrugs, but there’s something about the tilt of his head and the way that his fingers twitch on Robin’s shoulder that makes Jason think that this Robin has more luck persuading X to do things than Alfred has with Bruce.

“You could though.” Robin says quietly, staring up at X’s face. He turns back to Jason. “Hey so, since we have a while to wait, why don’t you tell us how you got together with your Dick?”

“Sure, why not?” Jason grins up at him. “So, I died while I was Robin...”

“Me too.” X nods, shoulders tensing up a little.

“That happens to a lot of us. It’s actually more unusual to not die.” Jason says, staring down at a scratch in the table top. He takes a deep breath and continues.

“Anyway I wake up in my grave. Which was not so fun. I break out and crawl up, only to see Dickie walking up the path with flowers in his hand for me.”

_“Hey Dickie!” Jason calls out, still face down on the top of his grave. He tries to push himself up but he’s all unbalanced. _

_“Jason!” Dick screams running up to him, face shocked. “WHERE ARE YOUR LEGS?”_

_“I DON’T KNOW!” Jason yells, slightly panicked. He can sort of feel them flailing around, kicking against something. They must still be in his coffin. “I think they’re still down there.”_

_“OK! STAY THERE, I’M GOING TO GET THEM!” Dick dives down into the hole Jason made digging himself out._

_“YOU DON’T NEED TO YELL, I’M RIGHT HERE!” Jason yells despite himself, feeling his legs trying to kick their way to freedom. _

_Dick pops back up, hand around one of Jason’s ankles. The other leg is kicking wildly and it catches Dick in the face. “OW!”_

_“Give it here!” Jason lunges for it, getting his hands on his hips, and pulling them towards his waist. It’s not the right angle to connect them back on, and Dick moves to help._

_“OK, I’m here, I got you. We’re going to rebuild you.” Dick babbles nervously. They finally find the right angle and Jason’s legs connect back with his body. They feel weirdly off, but it’s the same sensation Jason had when his arm popped out, and it faded with time, so he’s hoping it’ll go away soon. “We should get you back to Bruce...”_

_“No!” Jason jerks away from Dick, forcing himself up onto his feet, even though he still feels wobbly. “He wrote me off, had me _buried!_ Don’t make me go back there.”_

_“OK, OK, Jason.” Dick stops, taking a big breath. “Come home with me, we’ll sort all of this out.”_

_ _

“So, I went home with Dick, holding those flowers he brought for me.” Jason grins. “Dick was still a bit bitter about being kicked out by Bruce, so he didn’t mind me being angry at Bruce too. I changed my name to Red Hood, picked guns, just to piss Bruce off. Dick doesn’t care about guns, and I use non-lethal bullets, so that’s fine with him. We were roommates for a long while until we realised we’d kinda skipped past dating into being in a relationship.”

“Wow.” Robin says, his eyes widening to a point that it must be painful for him.

“Yeah, Dickie often jokes that it’s the most romantic coming back from the dead! He went to pay his respects to my grave; but I wasn't dead and needed his help crawling out of the grave, and putting my body back together.” Jason laughs, wishing Dick was there so he could hold his hand.

“That’s... I can’t work out if that’s hilarious and cute, or totally horrifying.” X says, his eyes wide. He shakes his head slightly and huffs a laugh. “I mean, it’s both, obviously.”

“Really? It’s generally taken as pretty comedic back home. Funny, romantic and a little silly.” Jason says, staring up at the emotions flitting over Robin’s face, and the less obvious tilt to Red X’s head that gives away little. Jason might be able to read the morbid amusement radiating from him, but then again, Red X _is_ this world’s him. He’s got an advantage nobody else has.

“Silly... I guess...” Robin says slowly. Jason’s stomach chooses that moment to rumble, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten in a few hours. “Oh, are you hungry? Have some pizza!”

“I could eat.” Jason nods, watching eagerly as Robin takes one of the leftover slices and tears it into smaller pieces for him. Jason lifts his helmet and pops one of the torn off pizza pieces in his mouth, chomping down with satisfaction. It’s _really good_ pizza. Maybe when he gets back to his earth he’ll take his Dick to this diner for a date. Sure, it’s the other side of the country, but the pizza really _is_ that good. He munches down on the other pieces, not noticing how Red X and Robin have turned to each other and are having a nearly silent conversation.

“You know, I think we’d get more privacy back at Titans Tower.” Robin says firmly, giving Red X a look that screams ‘don’t argue with me’.

“That’s a terrible idea. Let’s not.” X says, eyes narrowed, and clearly not intimidated by Robin’s glare.

“To Titans Tower!” Robin says, standing up and drawing the attention of the other patrons.

“WHAAAAAAAT?” A voice bellows from behind Jason, and he whips his head around, pizza hanging out of his mouth. His helmet falls down, knocking the pizza away. “ROBIN, WHAAAAAAT?”

“Cyborg? What… What are you doing here?” Robin startles, flailing for a moment, looking guilty. The other four Titans have abandoned their disguises, and are crowding around Robin’s side of the booth.

“We followed you, friend Robin.” Starfire says, smiling as she hovers in the air without a care in the world. “We are very happy you are here with the Red X on the date.”

“What Star said.” Raven grumbles, retreating deeper into her hood.

“Dude, why didn’t you tell us you were dating?” Beast Boy says, giving Robin sad puppy dog eyes, swiping the last slice of pizza shamelessly. “Not cool, brah, not cool.”

“This is exactly why we didn’t. You guys would crash all our dates.” Red X says, sliding subtly away from Robin. He doesn’t notice, too busy dealing with his teammates, but Jason sees it. “OK, little dude, here have this... It should help you.” X holds out a finger with a small drop of Xenothium. “Get back to your Dick.”

“Thanks, X!” Jason gives his bigger self a happy thumbs-up sign. “I will.”

“Don’t mention it. No, seriously, don’t mention it. I have a rep to keep.” X mutters, moving his finger to Jason’s gauntlet, slowly tilting his finger until the drop of Xenothium drips into it.

“Sure thing, X.” Jason says, saluting. The charge display on his gauntlet goes from nearly empty to full in a few seconds. Jason hits the button, jumping backwards, watching as Red X and Robin run hand in hand out of the diner, their capes and Titans trailing after them noisily.

“I still think you’re Jason Todd!” Beast Boy yells. “Just admit it already, dude!”

Jason turns to face the brightly shining portal, eyes automatically tracking the swirling mess of colours there, hoping that this jump will finally take him home.


	4. Earth-11 (genderflipped world) by elwon

Jason falls through the burst of light, his stomach flipping only once as his body does; and he lands with a quiet thud. Did he make it home? Looking around, blinking away the bright afterimages of his travel, he can see that, no. Of course he hasn’t made it home. He checks the display on his gauntlet. Earth-11. Another random jump, and he feels even further away from his own Earth-52.

He pushes himself up off his stomach, realising that he’s landed on someone’s shoulder. Probably this world’s Jason, given the way he’s arrived in the other universes so far. He’s very big, so Jason decides to mentally call him Big!Jason for now.

“The fuck?” Big!Jason’s deep voice says, too close to Jason for his comfort.

“Hey, watch it! I’m recovering here.” Jason yells, and Big!Jason turns to look at him. He frowns and Jason has just enough time to take in the fine layer of stubble and thin surgery scars that follow his bigger version’s jawline before he’s picked up by two strong thick fingers.

Jason pulls out his gun and fires off several warning shots into Big!Jason’s face, who winces slightly when they land, but otherwise doesn’t react.

“Quit that or I’ll break you into even littler pieces.” Big!Jason snarls, dangling Jason between his fingers. “Now what the hell are you?”

“Ugh, OK, here we go again.” Jason sighs. He’s done this enough times to have it down pat by now, with pauses to let the other hims process his words. “I’m Jason Todd. A version of you from another universe. Yes, everyone there is the same size and shape as me. I got into a fight with a supervillian, and they slapped this gauntlet on me. It’s been sending me to other universes, completely randomly, and now I’m here, just trying to get back to my home.”

“Is this for real?” Big!Jason sighs, rubbing his free hand over his face. “You gotta be some tech from, I don’t know, Toymaker or something right?”

“I’m you. I can prove it.” Jason points at Big!Jason’s face. “Your name is Jason Todd. You were born and grew up on Park Row in Gotham, until you got adopted by Bruce Wayne. You love Poison Idea, and chilli dogs, and you used to help your mom with her make-up when she got sick.”

“That’s weirdly accurate and yet still entirely off.” Big!Jason frowns down at him.

“Well, I am from another universe! Some details change.” Jason scowls up at Big!Jason.

“I guess.” Jason looks down at him considering it. “Fuck it, I’ll believe you for now. It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve heard all week.”

“What is the weirdest thing you’ve heard?” A female voice calls out, and both Jasons turn towards the owner.

“Robin...” Big!Jason whispers, and Jason takes the moments to stare at her. It’s definitely Dick and his Robin uniform, but well, that’s a girl. Dick’s a girl in this universe. That’s... Actually kind of cool, in Jason’s opinion.

“So, you must be the new guy I’ve heard about.” Robin smiles, looking like butter wouldn’t melt. But Jason can tell she’s got skills behind that disarming smile.

“And here I was, trying to keep a low profile.” Big!Jason smirks back. The smirk falters for a second or two as he stares at Robin, and his masked face is vulnerable.

“Wait, you two don’t know each other?” Jason pipes up and Robin’s gaze flicks down to him.

“Oh, that’s so cute! I want one.” Robin gushes, taking a few steps forward, smiling widely.

“You can have this one, I don’t want it.” Big!Jason says, flashing a nervous smile. “Anyways gotta go, got places to do, and people to visit...”

“But I don’t even know your name! You can’t go yet.” Robin says, batting her eyelashes at Big!Jason through her domino mask.

“He’s Jason Todd, former Robin, Batman’s second sidekick. The Joker killed him, and then he came back to life.” Jason pipes up, and watches them both for a reaction. Big!Jason twitches, and Robin blinks.

“Yeah, about one and a half of those things are accurate.” Big!Jason mutters, dropping Jason into Robin’s waiting hands.

“Well damn, I’m universe hopping, some things change and some things are the same.” Jason shrugs, standing in Robin’s cupped palms.

“I’m the first Robin, but Batwoman had a sidekick before me, but Quail wasn’t called Jason.” Robin says, biting her lip.

“...Yeah. Quail in fear.” Big!Jason snorts, eyes misting over in memory.

“Oh my god... Is that... Are you Ale-” Robin says, taking another step forward.

“Don’t call me that. Don’t use my deadname. I’m Jason now.” Big!Jason snaps out, eyes burning with anger.

“But you are, were... You were Quail, weren’t you?” Robin looks up at him, and the hope in her eyes is almost painful to see.

“I. Yeah.” Big!Jason nods, hunching in on himself, looking ashamed.

“Prove it. Tell me something only Ale- Tell me something only Quail knows.” Robin demands, rolling her shoulders back and standing up a little straighter.

“When you first came to live with us, you cried so much.” Big!Jason says, looking away from Robin and Jason, out over the city. “And I ended up buying you a stuffed toy elephant to cheer you up. But I couldn’t admit I bought it, so I said, the circus has sent it to you.”

“I didn’t believe you for a second and hit you with it. And then I burst into tears again and that was the first time you hugged me.” Robin says, smiling sadly.

“Yeah.” Big!Jason snorts. “You hit me pretty hard with it. And hugged me tight enough my only just healed broken arm creaked.”

“Oh my God, Al- Jason!” Robin sobs in relief. “You finally came home.”

Robin launches herself forward, causing Jason to be thrown up in the air. He tumbles down, catching on to her uniform and in the process he slips down under her armour. It’s surprisingly soft and warm and smells sweet. Robin wraps her legs around Big!Jason’s waist, hugging the hell out of him. Jason climbs out of her costume as much as he dares and sees the way they cling to each other.

“I’m sorry it took so long, little bird.” Big!Jason hefts Robin up a little more in his arms, holding her tighter.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re back now.” Robin says, a hitch in her voice. “But if you leave me again I’m kneecapping you.”

“Fair.” Big!Jason mutters into her shoulder.

Jason’s pretty much trapped in Robin’s top, but it’s warm and soft and he’s been in much worse places in his life. Jason finds himself yawning, and despite his best efforts he slips into much needed sleep, dreaming of home and his Dick.

***

A sudden jolt wakes Jason from his blissful sleep. His soft warm bed still smells good, but it’s a little damp from sweat. Which doesn’t seem right? Jason shifts and remembers he’s not at home; he’s stuffed down the top of the big Robin that he thinks is Dick’s female counterpart in this verse.

He squirms his way up, and pops his head out, looking around. It’s a familiar sight, the kitchen in the Manor, but of course everything here is made for the giants that inhabit most of the worlds Jason’s already visited. This Manor’s kitchen is identical down to the scratch on the stove top kettle that Alfred refuses to replace, and Jason’s hit with powerful longing for his own home. He ignores it in favour of yawning and stretching.

“Oh, we’re at the Manor already?” Jason says, climbing out of Robin’s corset. He perches on the edge of Robin’s armoured corset, and notices Big!Jason staring down at him, seething.

“The absolute fuck, dude? You’ve been in there the entire time?” Big!Jason reaches over to pluck him away from his second favourite spot in the universe. The first being of course, on top of his Dick, holding him to the bed.

“I don’t have any spare pouches on my belt, Jay. He had to stay somewhere.” Robin pouts up at Big!Jason, making him pause, and clench his fist before his fingers close around Jason.

“Not down your tits, he didn’t!” Big!Jason complains, eyes flicking down to Robin’s chest a little too often for Jason not to notice.

“Well, I had to transport him somehow, and we needed to get here to help him get home.” Robin says with a shameless grin.

“Uh... Actually. Well, my gauntlet just needs to recharge? I only need to be here for a couple more hours, really.” Jason pipes up, feeling a little bad for Robin, and honestly he really need to find out what her name is, after being up close and personal for so long. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, I’m Richelle, but everyone calls me Dixie!” Robin says, booping him gently on the top of his helmet, making him wobble. “Aren’t I called that in your world?”

“No. Well... Your name is Richard, but you go by Dick.” Jason says, almost tipping back and down her top again as he looks up at her. He manages to pull himself back, but his stomach rumbles loudly.

“Are we all men in your world then? That’s weird!” Dixie says, looking amused. “Are you hungry? We should totally be good hosts and feed you!”

“He just got a boob ride! He doesn’t need food too.” Big!Jason says, clearly not in the mood to let it go. Jason thinks his jealousy is a little extreme, but then again, he’s the same way around his Dick.

“Shush you, you’ll wake Alice.” Dixie says, lightly smacking Big!Jason on his leather jacketed shoulder.

“Too late for that I’m afraid.”Alice says, switching on the kitchen light, and all three of them turn to face her, blinking in the harsh lighting. “Miss Dixie, what have I told you about bringing strange young men home with you. And being in uniform above stairs?”

“Oops. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, Alice.” Dixie says sheepishly.

“Indeed.” Alice walks closer to them, and Jason blinks at the sight of a kind old British lady in a sensible uniform. He’s never thought what a female Alfred would look like, but he kind of wants to let her wrap him up in a blanket and feed him cookies. Well, actually he’d let male Alfred do that too, but he’d grumble to keep up appearances.

“Uh... So! I found two lost souls that needed to come home.” Dixie says at Alice’s raised eyebrow. “This is Jason. He’s universe hopping and needs a meal before he goes to the next one, I guess?”

“My, you’re rather small, young man.” Alice says with a twinkle in her eye.

“I’m perfectly standard for my world, ma’am.” Jason gives a little bow, and Alice lets out a delicate chuckle.

“Well, I think our standard meals might be a little too large for you, so I’ll see what I can do.” Alice holds out a finger and Jason takes it gently in both hands and shakes it politely.

“Hey Miss Alice.” Big!Jason says, almost hesitantly. “Been a while. Sorry for the ruckus.”

“It’s quite alright, Miss Alex... Oh.” Alice says automatically, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Oh, we missed you terribly, my boy. Welcome home, Master Jason. Now let me get a good look at you.”

“Sorry for running out. I had to... Brula...” Big!Jason trails off, hunching up a little. But he takes his mask off, letting Alice look.

“I’m well aware of the situation. Please don’t worry about that, Master Jason.” Alice says, tone full of forgiveness. “It’s good to see you’ve finally grown into those hands and feet of yours.”

“I had a little help, honestly.” Jason shrugs, looking awkward. “I got the best treatment, because of that account you set up for me.”

“Did you? Well, that is reassuring to hear. We were all very worried about you.” Alice says, cupping his face to stare into Big!Jason’s eyes, searching them intently.

“All of you?” Big!Jason says, and even though he tries to sound dismissive, there’s a thin thread of hope there.

“Yes, even Miss Brula.” Alice says with a rueful shake of her head. “I know the two of you parted on the worst terms possible, but she worried as much as the rest of us.”

“I know she felt bad about you running off.” Dixie says, moving over to the kitchen table and Jason jumps down from his perch to land on the table top. “But she said you were an adult, and it was your mista... Choice to make.”

Alice gets together a pot of tea. “Why don’t you sit down and fill us in on what you’ve been up to? And perhaps little Jason can tell us of his travels too.” She flits about the kitchen with a speed belying her age, getting together sandwiches in almost the blink of an eye. There’s even a saucer filled with a quarter of a sandwich cut into smaller pieces for Jason.

“I guess.” Big!Jason says with an uncomfortable shrug, but he sits at the table anyway. “You wanna go first, little guy?”

“I don’t mind.” Jason shrugs, lifting his helmet enough to shove a small piece of sandwich in his mouth. One thing that doesn’t change across the multiverse is Alfred’s excellent cooking skills. “There was this one world where everyone was vampires. That was weird. Oh, and there’s a universe where we’re all samurai in feudal Japan! And one universe where we live in Victorian times.”

“You’ve been to a few places then?” Dixie says, staring down at Jason like he’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen. He hops up to sit on the rim of the sugar bowl to continue.

“There’s been a few universes where we’ve been enemies, too. But that’s mostly because of the Joker killing that universes’ me, and then I have to crawl out of my grave to avenge myself.” Jason says, and when he looks up, the faces of all of the big ones have fallen in degrees of horror, shock and grim resignation. “But you’ve avoided that in this verse, so well done, Big Me.”

“Yeah, well done me.” Big!Jason echoes, frowning. “Any universes where everything works out for once?”

“Oh! Yeah, a couple.” Jason grins, pointing at Dixie, and then Big!Jason. “Usually the ones were you end up married.”

“Married? To whom?” Alice sets the pot of tea down on the table, and sets out cups, and a bottle cup in front of Jason.

“They marry each other.” Jason watches as Alice pours him a little tea into the bottle cap and then looks up his counterpart to see his reaction.

“Each... Other...?” Big!Jason looks a little pole-axed, and Jason takes the opportunity to plant the seeds of them getting together.

“Oh, yeah. All the universes where you’re a couple are much happier.” Jason nods, and picks up the bottle cap to drink his tea.

“My. What an unexpected turn of events.” Alice says dryly, and Dixie shoots her a mildly panicked glance. Jason notices the gentle smile she gives in return. Seems like maybe Dixie’s had a crush. That’s reassuring, in a lot of ways.

“We’re together on my earth, too.” Jason says, and laughs when Big!Jason chokes on his tea. “Alright there, big guy?”

“Fine. I’m fine.” Jason coughs, clearing his throat. “I can’t even picture a tiny Dixie...”

“He’s a Dick in my universe, but I love him anyway.” Jason smirks. “That’s his name, by the way. He’s too nice to be an actual dick, if you know what I mean.”

“Speaking of actual dicks...” Dixie says, turning to Big!Jason. “_You_ are one. Why didn’t you call me! I missed you.”

“I... I don’t know. It felt weird.” Big!Jason shifts awkwardly in his seat. “I was changing my whole life; and my body in the process. I guess... I wanted to come back feeling whole?”

“But you were gone two years, Al- Jason. Jason.” Dixie pouts, looking genuinely upset. Jason wants to hug her, but he knows he’s too small to really help. “Not even one phone call?”

“I sent Alice a couple of ‘Hey, I’m still alive’ emails.” Big!Jason mutters defensively. “I was going through some pretty intensive therapy, and I don’t know. It didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“But you’re happier now, right?” Dixie says, reaching out to rest her hand on Big!Jason’s forearm.

“Yeah.” Big!Jason shifts his arm until Dixie’s hand is in his. Jason lets himself smile quietly at that. “Tons of therapy and social transitioning, testosterone and the surgeries, and now when I look in the mirror I actually see myself. It’s better. I feel _right_.”

“Good.” Dixie smiles, and she looks so happy for Big!Jason that Jason wants to yell at them to ‘just hug already’. Or maybe build a baby together! And then he’s missing his Dickie so much it hurts. He needs to get back to him. He wants to hear Dickie singing that silly build a baby song again.

“And I travelled for a while too. I mean, after recovering from the surgeries. Went out and saw the world. I liked that.” Big!Jason says, staring at Dixie like she’s the only thing that matters in his life.

“Yeah?” Dixie looks back at Big!Jason. Jason and Alice share a conspiratorial grin at the two of them forgetting they’re there. “Go anywhere special?”

“Yeah, plenty of places I wanted to show to you.” Big!Jason says, squeezing Dixie’s hand in his. “I’ve got some great memories of walking around Rio after getting my jaw squared up, drinking coconut water and soaking up the sun. You’d have loved it.”

***

The last of the tea has been drunk, and the sandwiches all eaten, and Alice not so subtly suggests that Dixie go downstairs to remove her uniform. Jason hops up onto Big!Jason’s shoulder and hitches a ride down to see what their cave is like.

The clearest difference between this earth’s cave and his own, is in the display cabinets of their uniforms. They’re all tailored for the more obvious curves of the female body. Everything else looks pretty much identical, apart from the head on the giant penny being a lady.

Dixie darts into the changing room and Big!Jason follows in after her slower. Jason looks around, taking in the tiniest differences while Big!Jason stands there awkwardly. There’s scented body washes and ladies underwear discarded around the room, but otherwise, again, there’s no real difference in the rooms.

“Oh excellent!” Dixie says, tucked away in a cubicle as she removes her Robin uniform.

“What is?” Big!Jason says, closing his eyes and looking away from what is obvious a long discarded bra that can only be Dixie’s, due to the size.

“My new uniform’s come in.” Dixie pokes her head out of the cubicle door and gives both Jasons a sweet smile. “You want to see it?”

“Sure.” Big!Jason agrees, and Jason himself nods and waves.

“Give me a minute, I’ve never actually put it on before. Need to figure out the zippers!” Dixie calls out.

“Take your time.” Jason yells and grips onto Big!Jason’s jacket as the man sighs heavily. “Hey!”

“What?” Big!Jason says with an edge to voice. “Shit, sorry. It’s just really fucking weird being down here again.”

“It’s fine, dude. I had the same reaction back on my earth when I came back.” Jason shrugs. “It feels like you’ve outgrown the place, but it’s like an old worn out t-shirt you don’t want to get rid of, it feels like home too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Big!Jason sighs again, raising an arm to touch a robe with a ‘D’ stitched on the chest hanging on the wall.

“Even though I’d been Red Hood for a while, seeing my old Robin uniform was... It wasn’t nice.” Jason says quietly as Big!Jason forces himself to turn away from the robes to look into the room.

“Fuck, I don’t even want to see my old Quail uniform. Bad memories.” Big!Jason clenches his fists, as if fighting back a shudder.

“OK! So...” Dixie says, stepping out of the cubicle. “It’s a pretty different look, I know. But it’s based on one of the flying Grayson uniforms just like my Robin suit is.”

“That is very blue.” Big!Jason says, eyes travelling up and down Dixie’s body.

“Good or bad?” Dixie says, walking up closer and giving them as twirl as she approaches.

“The colour? It’s... Good.” Big!Jason coughs, blinking rapidly. “It’s a good colour on you.”

“Thanks! I’ve sort of outgrown Robin, and Superwoman told me about Nightwing and Firebird, these two ancient Kryptonian heroes? Anyway it inspired me to try this. I’ve been thinking about changing it for a while, I’ve got a whole pile of sketches, but I eventually picked this one. I’m thinking it’s more Nightwing than Firebird.” Dixie trails off, staring up at Big!Jason.

“I remember you saying you’d never outgrow Robin, what with it being your father’s nickname for you.” Big!Jason says, staring at the way the new uniform flexes over Dixie’s hips. “What the hell changed?”

“A lot of things. I grew up; I’ve helped save the word with the Teen Titans once or twice. You left.” Dixie shrugs, her long ponytail swinging behind her as she walks closer to Big!Jason.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that counts.” Big!Jason says, summoning up a shaky grin. “I guess.”

“So what do you think? Be honest.” Dixie says, coming ever closer, eventually resting an arm on Big!Jason’s free shoulder.

“I love it.” Jason says, giving her a thumbs up sign. Dixie grins at him and blows him a kiss. When she turns back to Big!Jason, he takes the opportunity to jump from big!Jason’s shoulder to a nearby table with a scattering of designs on it, all obviously Dixie’s.

“Way too much skin on show.” Big!Jason gulps, staring at the cutouts on her new uniform and frowning a little. “I do not approve.”

“It’s not actually skin. See?” Dixie takes Big!Jason’s hand and rests it over the window on her belly that Jason would have sworn was skin. “And it’ll make for a good distraction!”

“Oh. Yeah.” Big!Jason’s hand twitches on Dixie’s belly as she holds it in place. “Well, I don’t think the distraction is worth the ogling.”

“Says you!” Dixie grins, stepping in closer and resting her other arm on Big!Jason’s shoulder. One hand comes up behind the back of his head to play with a lock of hair. They’re standing so close that Jason thinks he couldn’t get a brick between them.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look amazing.” Big!Jason says, his voice dropping down lower as he stares down at Dixie’s neckline. “But seriously, you could wear pants.”

“I am! Same as the belly and hip windows.” Dixie giggles. “Go on, have a feel.”

“I... Dixie...” Big!Jason shakes his head in defeat. “Fine. Here I go, feeling you up for... This isn’t even science or justice, damn it.”

“You could consider it your punishment for leaving without a word for two years?” Dixie says, and while her voice is teasing, from the wince Big!Jason gives, the look on her face was probably more serious than that.

“Some punishment.” Jason mutters quietly, watching as Big!Jason’s hand inches up Dixie’s leg to her upper thigh.

“Well, fine I’ll give you that it’s a huge distraction while you’re fighting. I can barely look you in the eyes!” Big!Jason chokes out as his hand closes around what looks like the bare skin of Dixie’s thigh. But Jason can see how it moves slightly independently of Dixie’s leg when she shifts.

“But my eyes are up here, Al- I mean, Jason.” Dixie breathes out, and leans in closer. The top of her head is level with Big!Jason’s nose so she pushes up onto her tiptoes. Big!Jason opens his mouth, but he thinks better of whatever he was planning to say and closes it. Dixie leans in closer and then Big!Jason closes the distance between them, capturing her lips with his own.

Jason watches them kiss, Dixie on her tip toes, arms entwining around one another and feels something click into place. Dixie moans quietly, and Big!Jason wraps his arms around her waist tighter, nearly picking her up. Jason turns away to study Dixie’s sketches again, giving them as much privacy as he can without leaving the room.

“Oh.” Dixie breathes out, pressed up against Big!Jason and sounding lost in a dream. “Wow.”

“Yeah...” Big!Jason presses his forehead against hers, letting his eyes stay closed for a long moment. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I kind of was...” Dixie says, pulling away slightly. “Is that weird? Is this too weird?”

“I don’t know.” Big!Jason bites his lip staring at her. “I don’t think so?”

“So, you’d want to do it again?” Dixie says, and Jason’s been trying his best to keep quiet, decides to check his gauntlet reading for the charge and trips over a pencil when he sees it’s at 95%. The noise startles them both and they look over at him. “Um, maybe when little Jason’s gone?”

“I definitely want to do it again.” Big!Jason nods. “I don’t know what that says about me, but fuck, I wanna do that again.”

“Yeah?” Dixie’s smile is almost blinding in its happiness and Jason can’t help grinning in response.

“We’ll need to have a talk about it, but yes. When tiny me is gone.” Big!Jason nods. Dixie steps back out of his arms, and runs her hands through her hair. The two of them look at each other without moving for a long moment.

“I found your sketches. I had a look while you two were busy.” Jason says breaking the silence. “Hope you don’t mind. They’re really good!”

“Thanks!” Dixie smiles at Jason, walking over to the table. “I liked a lot of them, but somehow they just didn’t fit with what I was going for. Or they were more suited to Firebird, and I wanted to be Nightwing.”

“Can I see?” Big!Jason says, walking up to the table. His hands twitch towards the sketches, but he doesn’t even look down at them.

“Of course!” Dixie waves her permission. “I can’t believe I never asked what name you use in the field now...”

“I’m not.” Big!Jason says, spreading the sketches out to study them. “Using a name in the field, I mean. I couldn’t come up with anything that felt right.”

“We could help you with that.” Jason says, eyeing a uniform that looks a lot like his Dickie’s fingerstriped Nightwing, only in a metallic red. “If you want.”

“Uh, sure why not.” Big!Jason shrugs, leafing through the loose sketches until he picks up the one that Jason was just looking at. “You guys can’t think of anything worse than what I tried to come up with.”

“Red Hood.” Jason says, and they both look at him. “What? We take it up in like nearly all the universes. Except the few where we don’t die. Oh, wait, you didn’t die in this one?”

“Not so far.” Big!Jason says with an amused glint in his eye.

“Cardinal?” Dixie twists her long ponytail around her fingers.

“That sounds like a catholic priest.” Big!Jason snorts, shaking his head.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.” Dixie laughs, putting her hands together in prayer.

“Oh! We’re a priest on one earth.” Jason says, watching Big!Jason’s face go into shock.

“Yeah, that’s a no to Cardinal.” Big!Jason says firmly.

“Falcon?” Dixie hums, tapping at her bottom lip. “Oh, no, that’s a comic book character.”

“Yeah, it is.” Big!Jason looks through the sketches some more.

“Well, there’s always Firebird?” Dixie says a little hesitantly.

“Best one so far. But you wouldn’t mind being tied to me?” Big!Jason says, looking over to her. “How well known is the whole Nightwing and Firebird thing anyway?”

“Uh, not very, unless you’re into Kryptonian culture?” Dixie thinks about it for a few moments. “It’s pretty obscure, I think.”

“So, we wouldn’t have to be partners, unless we wanted to be?” Big!Jason says, biting his lip.

“You don’t want to partner up?” Dixie says, the smile slipping from her face quietly. Jason doesn’t like the unhappy look on her face.

“No, I do. I do!” Big!Jason says, realising his mistake. “But I don’t want you to feel forced into it. I thought you wanted to strike out on your own?”

“Oh. Well, I was thinking that, yeah. But working with you again would be so much better!” Dixie bounces on the spot.

“Are you sure?” Big!Jason says, and Dixie nods, a wide smile on her face. “Firebird it is then. I’m gonna need a uniform.”

“Actually... I kind of had a few made up.” Dixie shifts slightly, suddenly nervous. “And the red arm stripe design was one of them? You’d need a lower half to fit you, but the top would only need minor alteration to fit your ...Lack of chest.”

“This one?” Big!Jason picks up the matte black suit sketch with a red metallic strip down the arms. “I do kind like this one. I’d want a jacket, or more protection though. I’m not as bendy as you.”

“I’m sure we call pull together something.” Dixie grins. Jason’s gauntlet beeps and he looks down to see that the charge has fully loaded.

“I’m sure it’s going to be great guys! But my gauntlet is fully charged, so it’s time for me to go.” Jason waves at them. “I’m glad you guys have worked it out. Take care of each other.”

“We will. Good luck, tiny me.” Big!Jason pats him gently on the head and gives him a smile.

“Thanks!” Jason punches the button on his gauntlet and it sends out a beam a few feet in front of him. The beam wavers and he walks towards it, waving at Big!Jason and Dixie.

Once again Jason leaps into the brightly shining portal, hoping that this jump will finally take him home.


	5. Earth-Prime (Comics Continuity) by calamityjade

Jason falls through the burst of light, closing his eyes to block out the glare as best as he can. The nauseating rush of breaking through it gets no better with repetition, and Jason feels his stomach flip in time with his body as he tumbles endlessly down, until the jolt of the landing finally makes everything stop with a dull thump.

The deafening burst of noise in his surroundings make Jason dread opening his eyes, already fearing the familiar disappointment of seeing unfamiliar surroundings instead of home.

Jump after jump so far, all he’d learned was that there were far too many universes out there, and most of them were grossly out of scale.

With a sigh, Jason takes quick stock of himself and quickly determined his landing had been softer this time around. The texture under his body feels plush and giving when he makes to push himself up to find out if he’s made it home at last.

“Hey! Robots are banned! Hey! This bastard’s trying to cheat over ‘ere!”

“I am not, you sleazy bag of lard! That thing ain’t mine, you’re the one playing tricks!”

Cripes. Of course he hadn’t made it home at all. Not yet.

Jason looks up to find himself forgotten under the looming figures of two unknown men in expensive looking suits, growling in each other’s faces with increasingly colorful language the likes of which Alfred would wash Jason’s mouth out with soap for attempting.

The plush surface Jason had landed in turned out to be none other than a green felt table underneath a luxurious looking chandelier Dickie would delight to swing himself from, were he here.

Jason fervently wishes Dickie was, but loses the thought in the next second, as it becomes clear that he was the source of the dispute going on over his head.

“You brought that tiny robot to reserve a betting number, you filthy lying pig! Get Security in here, this scammer’s rigged the roulette!”

A younger moustached man is screaming, face distorted with rage as he points at Jason’s position without looking away from his rival, a big bellied man who looks to be pushing seventy and risking a heart-attack from the way he’s gone red in the cheeks in spluttering outrage.

Uh-oh. Time to scram.

Jason scrambles to his feet and runs through the multicolored chips on the table toward the edge, jumping and flipping up on a tower of them when someone tries to grab him from above.

Predictably, the chips he uses as a springboard scatter everywhere at the disruption, and Jason grimaces when he hears renewed shouts of outrage and the croupier’s increasingly insistent calls for Security behind him. Breaking glass follows a particularly insulting appellative, and Jason barely makes it past a woman’s manicured hands making a second attempt to catch him.

“Gentlemen! If you’ll be so kind!” A voice rings out, loud and cheerful, and instantly, beautifully familiar to Jason.

The voice halts the building chaos in its tracks as effectively as any magic spell, everyone freezing mid argument. Just as Jason reaches the end of the betting table, the owner of the call steps into view under the bright lights, smiling affably at the gathered crowd, body effectively placed to block Jason’s own escape off the betting table.

Dick stands before him, tall and impeccably dressed in designer clothes that hug his every curve, arms spread wide to address the room, his face a performer’s dream come to life. Jason can’t help but stare at him, as spellbound as the rest of the rowdy crowd, as those sharp deep blue eyes take a quick scan of the situation with barely a glance.

Jason meets that gaze with his and is unsurprised at the subtle double-take he receives, but Dick’s smile doesn’t waver, and neither does his voice as he takes flawless advantage at the pause his appeal has created in the room.

“Clearly what we have in our hands is a harmless misunderstanding,” Dick announces grandly, waving at the burly security staff approaching from the side and signalling the intervention won’t be necessary. “Mr. Reinheart, accusations of that caliber carry weight in this establishment! Surely you’re aware we would never allow such dealings under this management.”

The accusation was less than subtle, and the pallor that overtakes the moustached man’s face as he smiles woodenly back at Dick proved the jab landed as intended.

Jason remains on edge as he watches the exchange. He shifts in place, more than aware as Dick casually leans forward to lean on the felt table, that he’s just been deliberately boxed in between Dick’s arms.

Little as Jason minds close-contact with Dick Grayson on the daily, this situation seems to call for caution.

“Oh, certainly Mr. Grayson!” The man with the moustache laughs falsely, looking around him at the gathered, well-dressed crowd that is nervously watching him flounder under Dick’s steely gaze. “A shock it was, you see, to have a good luck streak interrupted!”

“Of course,” Dick grants pleasantly, turning his sharp gaze to the older man in the dispute with an apologetic grimace. “My fault I’m afraid, Mr. Marjanović. Our latest security prototype got away from me and ended up disrupting both your fun. I hope both you fine patrons will accept my apologies and an offer for some fresh chips on the house?”

Jason sighs, unsurprised to see the instant greed in both quarreling men’s eyes light up as the tension around the room diminished drastically at Dick’s gracious act.

Jason spots several staff members in black vests already moving smoothly around the room with fresh drinks and clean up for the broken glasses of the Casino patrons. With their movements, the ambiance noise slowly eases back into chatter and murmurs that dispel the prior tense silence.

“I think a thousand for each of these gentlemen should account for the bother.” Dick offers lowly to the men that had just been fighting, signalling to the oddly unflustered croupier with a friendly hand-motion, still smiling grandly for the benefit of any lingering gawkers.

Jason is impressed and bewildered in turns about the kind of world he’s landed in, one that has Dick Grayson disrupting a row in a betting Casino with that kind of easy pull, bare-faced and openly challenging.

As if to counter Jason’s thoughts about the unfamiliarity of the situation, Dick swiftly uses the distraction of his words to grab a hold of Jason with a well practiced sleight of hand straight from the Bat handbook of tricks. Nobody else seems to notice the move or Jason’s muffled yelp of surprise, the source of the commotion immediately forgotten in the face of Dick’s apparent generosity.

Jason wants to protest the undignified carry, but thinks better of causing another scene before he knows more details about this universe.

Besides, Dick’s hold remains carefully gentle for all it’s inescapable. So Jason lets it happen as Dick smooths a few more ruffled feathers around the room before walking away from the roulette table altogether to let the bets recommence, crisis averted.

Dick’s - and inevitably, Jason’s - trek across the crowded venue is cut short when a tall, broad shouldered man in a black, perfectly cut suit steps smoothly onto their path. Even from the awkward position Jason is in, half hidden in Dick’s right fist at the man’s side, he has little trouble recognizing himself in the flesh, or this world’s version of him at any rate.

The other Jason is smiling at Dick, openly pleased and proud in a way Jason pegs as terribly goofy and besotted, because he can recognize the look from his own face around Dickie.

Looks like matchmaking won’t be necessary in this universe, for however long Jason ends up stuck in it. That’s a load off his back, at least.

“You’re late, sweetheart.” This sharply dressed Jason purrs, low and private, and Jason tells himself he’s not jealous, not at all, of the way Dick smiles brightly back, slight blush climbing his high cheekbones in response.

“My bad. You saw why though,” Dick drawls, relaxing immediately into the arm Dapper!Jason extends to pull him close to his chest in a familiar hold. It’s a sweet move, shameless in a public setting, but both men look oblivious to any stares, lost in each other’s eyes for long moments of silent communication.

Jason misses his own Dickie with a fierceness that hurts right then, intruding in yet another moment between lovers in a universe that still isn’t his home.

The loneliness keeps growing with every hop, every time, and Jason is so tired of yearning for the journey to end.

“I sure did,” Dapper!Jason answers belatedly, breaking the moment with his Dick as he gives Jason, still trapped in Dick’s hand a sharp calculating look that means he saw the entire thing unfold from wherever he’d been hiding in. Great. “Shall we?”

Dick graciously accepts the arm Dapper!Jason offers him and off they all go, the crowd parting for the pair like they’re royals as they move to the grand silver elevator, shadowed closely by a burly giant of a man with rolled up sleeves that Jason warily watches escort them to the doors.

“You and Suzie have the floor, Wingman.” Dapper!Jason tells the behemoth unconcernedly, waving him off as the elevator doors begin to slide shut. A button press, then they’re open again and Jason watches the smile on his counterpart’s face sharpen dangerously as he adds absentmindedly, as an afterthought. “Make sure Miguel takes care of that pair in the roulette when they retire, would you?”

The elevators door slide all the way closed on the big man’s frighteningly satisfied face to the tune of Dick’s exasperated sigh above Jason’s head.

“Really, Jay? I had it handled.” Dick whines, leaning on his Dapper!Jason’s side when the suited man just laughs and lifts Dick’s free hand to kiss the back of it in a gallant, over-the-top gesture.

Jason is not jealous of himself, he’s not.

“You handled it beautifully Dickie, but you know I have a rep to sustain in this place,” Dapper!Jason soothes as the elevators smoothly moves the lot of them up, depositing them into a penthouse floor in the blink of an eye.

Before they’re even done stepping out of the elevator, a scrambling sound followed by a loud, happy bark come from an unseen room, and Jason watches in fear as an enormous dog emerges before anyone can do anything, gleefully jumping to greet her people with happy little sounds and licks.

Dick thankfully remembers his charge and raises the hand holding Jason high in the air, out of the delighted dog’s reach, as his free hand and both of Dapper!Jason’s busy themselves petting the furry welcome committee.

“Hey Dog, hi hi hi,” Dick is cooing, while Suit!Jason is fruitlessly trying to get the pup to stop jumping all over them. The scene drags on for a few minutes until the dog tires herself out, and with one last happy lick at Dick’s cheek, retreats to a doggy bed by the couch, tail still wagging a little.

“Sorry about that,” Dick tells Jason then, lowering his arm and loosening his hold on Jason, finally acknowledging him openly. Dick allows him to wiggle free to stand on Dick’s outstretched palm, from where Jason tries not to sideeye the dog too obviously.

Dapper!Jason notices him doing it and snorts, moving to call the Dog to his side and then further into the penthouse, out of sight, presumably to lock the (giant, dangerous) beast somewhere where it won’t eat Jason whole.

Dick takes the chance to finally lift Jason to eye-level so that he can unabashedly stare at him in open bewilderment. When Dapper!Jason comes back into the room, sans dog, he stands next to Dick and squints at Jason with exactly the same skepticism one gives an unknown bug, not saying anything.

“No, I’m not a toy, a robot or a tiny alien.” Jason cuts their speculation short before it can start with the most common appellatives he’s been labelled with in the last couple of universes. He tries not to take offense to Dick’s amused quirk of the mouth.

“You’re Jason!” Dick exclaims, sounding delighted even through his obvious confusion. Dapper!Jason doesn’t look nearly as entertained at his side. “How did you get here?”

“Portal,” The wrong Jason answers, face serious as he points at the cursed gauntlet stuck on Jason’s wrist for Dick’s benefit. It’s the perfect segue to glance at it, and Jason does, finally given the chance after his adventurous arrival.

41% charge, it reads. Could be worse. Where the Earth’s number should be though, it just reads PRIME in all caps, making Jason frown in confusion.

Ah, well. Nevermind. Bigger fish and all that.

“What are you after? Why did you come?” Dapper!Jason demands, making Jason square his jaw and raise his chin challengingly, angry at the immediate distrust from his counterpart.

“Jay, that’s rude!” Dick admonishes his lover with little heat, giving Jason a more neutral look as he takes a beat to drink him in. Jason studies him in return, startled to notice the details about this Dick that he hadn’t paid attention to before.

Dick’s hair is much shorter than Jason is used to seeing it in any world, clearly growing in from an even shorter length, and the silhouette of a viciously long scar on the side of Dick’s head is obvious even through his growing locks when he turns to give his own Jason a quelling look.

Dick looks thinner than he should be as well, Jason notices uneasily. With the grace and confidence with which he carries himself, it was hard to spot, but to someone who knew Dick Grayson well, it was evident. This Dick had lost muscle mass and bulk at some point, and his cheekbones look sharper, his skin a tinge too pale.

Suddenly the other Jason’s handsy possessiveness of his Dick seemed less obnoxiously territorial and more...protective.

“Accidental universe hopping,” Jason explains begrudgingly. He heaves a big tired sigh and jiggles the gauntlet that started all of this in the air. “This thing is doing it, I can’t control it. I’ve lost count of how many universes I’ve been through. I’m just trying to get back home.”

Dick immediately looks back at him, big blue eyes sad and surprised. Dapper!Jason turns suitably somber as he straightens and gently prompts Dick to walk further into their penthouse, with Jason still being carried along.

They end up in a spacious couch. Jason takes the chance for freedom and flips down from his perch, bouncing as he lands in the soft surface. Dick lets him go, sitting in the next cushion over in a lazy sprawl that shouldn’t be as graceful as he makes it look.

Jason smiles at him, fond, and Dick grins back slightly.

Dapper!Jason just watches them both settle, then strides over to mix a drink in the bar by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the room. Beyond his figure and past the glass, Jason is treated to a sprawling view of what he can instantly recognize as the Gotham bay some miles away.

It’s then that Jason spots another difference, big and glaring now that he’s seen it. Rings, tasteful and identical, adorn both the other men’s left hands. Unmistakable.

“You’re married?” Jason blurts out in his shock, startling out of his melancholy mood. This world is so strange! He’d yet to meet a version of Dick and him that had actually married, for all they were together in most universes he’d visited.

“Yup. Legally and all.” Casino!Jason confirms flippantly, broad back still to the room, but Jason is watching Dick. Dick looks at the ring on his hand almost as if he’s still surprised to see it there, the look in his eyes so full of joy that Jason has to smile just to look at the way it lights up his face.

“You could have done better,” Jason stage-whispers to Dick, and beams when it startles a laugh from him.

Dapper!Jason turns back to face them with a grumpy frown - ha! Totally jealous! - and walks to their side holding what turns out to be a harmless glass of sparkling water with a lemon wedge, as well as a little pill box, which he hands to Dick before settling at his side, arm immediately surrounding his husband.

Husband, Jason thinks, amazed at how right the word fits the two of them as he watches Dick lean into Dapper!Jason easily, obediently taking a pill from the box and swallowing it with the lemon water.

Dapper!Jason kisses Dick’s temple, lips brushing that gnarly scar as he meets Jason’s eyes, daring him to ask.

Dick elbows his husband without even having to look to know what he’s doing. Jason snorts as a petulant frown settles on his counterpart’s face.

Geez, Jason is really predictable across the universes. He really needs to work on that.

“I got shot,” Dick explains, gesturing to his skull without the question needing to be asked, and Jason can’t stop his horrified gasp. Dapper!Jason looks away even as his arm tightens around Dick, face troubled. Jason can tell that Dick isn’t nearly so unconcerned as he’s trying to seem about it. “Got better, mostly. Jason helped. Tim too. And Dami.”

No mention of Bruce. Yikes. Jason decides not to go around poking a possibly gnarly subject.

“So you decided to retire into the life of a Casino owner?” Jason offers instead, voice light to try and keep the clouds away from Dick’s bright eyes. The distraction works beautifully.

Dick laughs, shaking his head and placing it on his husband’s shoulder.

“Oh no, these swanky digs are the fruit of Jason’s dramatic grand gestures.” Dick teases, and Dapper!Jason grins down at him fondly. From the outside, Jason sees his counterpart’s bright teal eyes turning warm whenever they land on Dick’s face. It’s so obvious, his love, like a challenge to a universe that had almost stolen his Dick away from him for good.

Jason can sympathize with that blatant devotion. Dick deserves nothing less.

“Just a nice bonus from a job well done,” Dapper!Jason purrs, satisfaction written in every line of him. Jason can’t guess at the source, but he assumes this Casino had some unfortunate past owner that got in Dapper!Jason’s way. Though the only grand Casino Jason can think of in Gotham is -

Oh. Wait a second.

“You two took over The Iceberg Lounge?” Jason laughs, voice shriller than he’d like with the surprise, and when the other two laugh he cackles along with them, shaking his head at this crazy universe.

From legal marriage to stealing Penguin’s business. Yikes. This place is dangerously malleable, it seems, if Dick and Jason’s fortunes can be so different from other versions of them.

“No retirement though. I’ve been back on the streets for weeks.” Dick assures him earnestly, apparently embarrassed to be thought of as a full-time Casino runner. That’s downright adorable.

Jason wonders whether he should inform this Dickie that he is the very definition of a mobster’s wife in this scenario, but quickly decides against it.

Jason has had enough adventure throughout this universe-hopping sojourn to last him for life. Why add ‘hunted down by a pissed off Dick Grayson’ to the list of near-second-death experiences he’s got going.

“Enough about us, midget,” Dapper!Jason interrupts, gaze calculating once again. “What are you gonna do about your little interdimensional mishap?”

Jason sighs, removing his headgear to run a hand through his crazy hair, sweaty and gross from all his running earlier. Ew. The gauntlet on his wrist is still charging, sliding close to 70%. Ah hey, something in this universe must be charging it faster. Yay.

“Keep trying,” Jason shrugs, trying not to show how discouraged he feels that it’s taken so long or the worry that it might never end. “This things charges up, and I’m gone. Jump until the universe I land in is the right one is the only plan I’ve got.”

“Have you gotten any rest?” Dick asks worryingly, unfailingly kind. Jason never stops being amazed by him.

“A bit, here and there. I usually sleep when the charging process takes a long time. Sometimes I’ve been stuck in place for days!” That had not been fun. Jason just hopes it doesn’t happen again in the next one. “No need to worry about me, sweetheart.”

Oops. That slipped out.

Dick just blinks at him, seemingly charmed, but Dapper!Jason’s face looks like a human thundercloud.

“Uh, my bad?” Jason offers, but his other self doesn’t look appeased. Ah, well.

“Is your version of me around in your Gotham? He waiting for you?” Dick inquires and Jason hugs himself at the thought of Dickie worrying about him at home. He nods in reply, and Dick looks immediately sympathetic.

“You two together then?” Dapper!Jason asks, surprising Jason. He thought that was obvious!

“Of course!” Jason exclaims, spreading his arms to show how self-evident he thought that should be. “I’ve yet to see a universe where we didn’t fit together!”

He’d seen plenty where the two idiot versions of themselves hadn’t yet gotten over themselves enough to see it, but they’d always fit. Jason could see it plain as day, even if his counterparts couldn’t always.

Dapper!Jason looks simultaneously delighted and shocked by this information. Dick just looks smug, as if he’d known it. Jason winks at him in response.

Dick snorts, indulgently letting his husband draw him into his broader chest in a jealous reflex that nobody misses but everyone diplomatically chooses to ignore.

“So what was Dick late to?” Jason prods, idly spinning his helmet in his hands for something to do with them. At the confusion in the others’ faces, he clarifies to Dapper!Jason. “You greeted him by telling him he was late. To what?”

“Date night,” Dick sighs, waving off whatever face Jason must have made in return. “Don’t worry about it, we reschedule them all the time for business, family or otherwise.”

Oooh, but it’s hard for Jason to hold back his mafia wife jokes. He manages though. Heroically, in his own opinion. From Dapper!Jason’s sly, hidden grin, his efforts aren’t completely overlooked, even if Dick remains oblivious as he finally drains his glass of water and sets it aside.

“You guys should go ahead,” Jason offers, waving Dick’s protest away. “I’ll be out of both your hair any minute now. There’s no point in wasting a reservation on your night off just for me.”

“Hah, funny thing,” Dapper!Jason says, free hand scratching the back of his neck as Dick pursues his lips in annoyance. “One of the perks of jailing Penguin and taking this place is that the staff is eager to cater to the new owners. Hardly need a reservation in our own place. Or to keep a set time, for that matter.”

“Jay, you know I don’t like bothering the kitchens after-hours!” Dick complains, but his husband ignores him, clearly used to the power he held in a way Dick stubbornly wasn’t willing to match.

“Last time you tried to cook yourself a midnight snack to avoid bothering them, you made Kyle cry.” Dapper!Jason reminds Dick dryly, and Jason laughs at the embarrassed horror in Dick’s face.

“Kyle did _not_ cry Jason Peter Todd, you take that slander back-!”

“Ooh no, ooh no, did Mister Dick not like the cake I made? Did he want a different cake? Does he like sorbet? I will make him fresh cookies as well, please Mister  
Todd, go tell him that-” Dapper!Jason wails overdramatically in a clear imitation of someone else, and Dick leaps on him to smother him quiet with a cushion.

Their tussle makes Jason bounce in place on the couch cushions, but it’s impossible not to smile as he watches them play fight.  
97% the gauntlet reads, almost ready to go.

Ironically, instead of being overjoyed at how fast the thing charged up this time, Jason is almost reluctant to leave this world behind so fast. He’s almost tempted to linger, if only to study what makes this universe so different, terrible, jaded and hopeful all in a tangle around the two men tickling each other on the other end of the couch.

But as always, the thought of his own Dickie’s teasing grin dispels the idea of taking any longer than he must.

Home is where the heart is, and Jason’s heart remains a universe away.

He doesn’t tell his other selves goodbye this time, content to leave them to their shared joy. When the gauntlet is at 100%, Jason presses the colorful buttons once more, activating the mechanism like an old pro.

The vortex forms, bright and overwhelming as always, and after bracing himself, Jason leaps into the swirling portal, hoping that this jump will finally land him where his heart awaits.


	6. Earth-52 (Lego) 2 by elwon

Jason falls through the burst of light, and lands with a quiet thud in a dreadfully familiar ritual. Did he make it home? Looking around, blinking away the bright afterimages of his travel, Jason’s heart leaps to his throat when the sight that meets his eyes is finally a familiar one. Yes! He’s finally made it home! The readout on his gauntlet brightly declares Earth-52, and Jason whoops in relief.

He’s on a rooftop, and the sky is starting to lighten, so dawn must be approaching. Jason yanks off the gauntlet and shoves it deep into one of his pockets. He can show the others when he gets back, deciding what to do with it is a lot less important that tracking down Dick, and apologising for being gone so long.  
He jumps from building to building, revelling in the fact he can do that with ease, because theses rooftops and alleys between them are the right size for him once again.

He’s missed his Gotham more than he’d realised. The smells of the place, the way things break onto perfectly sized blocks, making rebuilding easy, that’s it’s the right size for him. The right size! Finally! No longer is Jason the smallest of the small, he’s finally back to being big.

After he came back to Gotham the first time, he never really felt the right size; everything was a lot smaller than it should have been. He could easily touch the top of doorways because he was adult sized, and he’d been entirely absent while his body built itself from child to adult. Now, everything looks and feels _right_. No longer is everything surrounding him several times larger than him, it all fits into his hands as if it were built to do exactly that. Because _it_ is.

It takes longer than he was expecting to track down Dick, mostly because his comms are all not working thanks to the inter-dimensional travel. He searches the city centre, trying to hail Oracle or Alfred, or anyone really, but nothing connects. He suspects he’ll have to get another helmet, as this one seems to be totally kaput.

Jason sees a few cops out on patrol, but none of the bats. He sighs as he switches over to the Narrows, but he has no luck there either. He wonders if he should just head straight home, but the thought that after four weeks Dick might have moved back to the Manor to be around his family stops him. Going back to the home they share to find it empty is something Jason’s not ready to face right now.

Jason moves through the city, checking rendezvous points and all the places he knows Dick likes to take breaks in, but he sees no one at all, and he starts to get a little worried. Not that he’ll admit it to anyone else.

Have they all disappeared? Did something truly bad happen to Gotham in the time that Jason was away? Or are they simply all at home in bed, resting up from a long night of protecting Gotham? Jason really hopes it’s the last one. It’s probably the most likely given that it’s so early in the morning.

By the time only the docks are left to check, the sun is cresting in the sky; and the world around him is on that transitional moment from night to day; the moment when the city wakes up and shifts as if stretching from its sleep.

He finally finds Dick down by the docks, frantically searching a rooftop while the sun breaks clear of the horizon. He’s breaking all the crates and anything not fixed down to their component blocks, obviously frustrated and angry.

“Nightwing.” Jason says, his voice modulator masking his relief at finally finding him. Dick spins on his heels at the sound of his codename, letting out a wounded sound at the sight of Jason.

“Hood!” Dick rushes over to him, stowing away his sticks. “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried!”

“Oh, that’s a long story. I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you.” Jason says, reaching out and taking Dick’s hand in his.

“Four hours, Hood! With no contact at all.” Dick shakes his head, and pinches at his mask like he wants to slide it off.

_Four hours ago:_

_“Nightwing, N, come in!” Oracle’s voice crackles through Dick’s comms._

_“What’s up, O?” Dick says with all the cheer he can muster. Which is quite a lot according to some people. But then most of those people are meeting him seconds after meeting Batman, so of course he seem extra in comparison. “I was about to head home.”_

_“We’ve lost contact with Hood.” Oracle says calmly and Dick stops in his stride. His foot rests on the balustrade of a building rooftop, and for a moment his heart hammers in his chest as the block shifts under his weight._

_“What?” Dick curls his hands into fists, taking a deep breath in to calm himself down. It’s probably nothing. Jason has a habit of not picking up every call, and sometimes ditches his helmet, not checking it for hours when they’re at home, his reasoning being that he has a phone and if people want to contact him at home they should use that. (Not that he always picks up the calls on that, unless it’s from Dick or Alfred. Then he always picks up.)_

_“I sent him to check out a report of supervillainy by GCPD HQ.” Oracle says, and Dick can hear the faint clacking of keyboard keys as she talks. “The Calculator was causing trouble. It was dealt with quickly by Hood, and the cops reported everything was fine...”_

_“But?” Dick prompts. He fixes his eyes on the Pine Tree constellation, giving him something to focus on while Barbara picks her words carefully for him. He knows she will. They’ve worked together for so many years, and Babs is one of the few people Dick will let tell him things they way she wants to._

_“But then there was a flash of light and a portal and Hood was gone.” Oracle finishes gently._

_“Where?” Dick asks, trying to keep his panic from overwhelming him. He can’t lose Jason again. Not now. They’ve finally got into a really good place. Not just between them, but the whole family. They can’t lose Jason now. It’s not fair! “Where did he go?”_

_“I have no idea. I’m sorry. I can’t get a trace of his comms.” Oracle says, sounding apologetic. “He could be anywhere. He might even be at home already, ignoring my calls. I don’t know.”_

_“I’m going to look for him.” Dick says firmly, shutting down whatever Barbara is about to say. “He could be anywhere right? I’m going to find him.”_

_“N...” Oracle trails off, and Dick wonders if she’s going to try to dissuade him or help._

_“What?” Dick says, trying to bite out any impatience from his tone._

_“...Nothing. Good luck.” Oracle says, and it has the feeling of a conversation finisher._

_“Thanks, O. But I won’t need it.” Dick tells her, signing off. He wishes she’d given him a hint of where to go, but Dick’s been superheroing for years. He can do this without any help._

_He starts at GCPD HQ. There’s not a hint of anything out of the usual. Dick does find some of Jason’s round disc bullets, but there’s no other trace that he’s been there at all. Dick circles out from there, going up on the rooftops for a better view._

_Dick searches everywhere, on the rooftops and the back alleys; in the places he knows Jason will disappear off to when he needs some space and quiet. He finds nothing recent and he tries to stay calm, not to panic, but a thin thread of worry starts to worm its way through his thoughts and he pushes himself harder and harder looking for Jason._

_He knows Jason was at the docks tonight, and as the sun begins to rise, he makes his way there. _

_He’s pretty sure he won’t find anything there, but he knows there are crates and empty warehouses he can take his frustrations out on, before he heads back to the Manor and gets the help he now has to admit that he needs. Breaking the crates and boxes down to blocks works off the edge of frustration he’s feeling so he can go home and not look like he’s falling apart when he looks his family in their faces._

_And then a familiar modulated voice calls his name._

“Four hours, Hood! With no contact at all.” Dick shakes his head, and pinches at his mask like he wants to slide it off. “I’ve been yelling at Oracle for the last two. Are you alright? You’re not hurt?”

“Four hours?” Jason says, shaking his head. “Try more like four weeks! That portal sent me jumping through dimension after dimension.”

“You’ve been to other worlds?” Dick says, scrunching his has up in confusion. “For a month?”

“So many other worlds! And they’re all so different. And big. They’re all really big. So big.” Jason sighs, tugging off his helmet. It comes off with a pop, leaving his hair to poof out in its place. Jason drops it down by his feet, not worrying about it cracking; considering that he’s going to have to replace it anyway. “It’s nice to be back in a proper sized world, let me tell you.”

“And you’re going to tell me all about it tomorrow, because right now, all I want to do is hug you until you promise to never leave me again.” Dick slides the lenses of his mask up so Jason can see his eyes.

“I promise to never leave you again.” Jason says automatically. “Can I still get the hug?”

Dick laughs, stepping into Jason’s waiting arms and throwing his arms around Jason’ neck, pulling him in tight. “I missed you so much. And it was only four hours. I can’t imagine doing four weeks.”

“Well, I met a lot of yous on the way home. And a lot of mes too. I might have even helped a few of them.” Jason hugs Dick in close, pressing their foreheads together. He’s really missed this. Just him and his Dickie together.

“It sounds like you’ve got an epic story to tell.” Dick smiles, and Jason feels something deep within him that’s been wound painfully tight finally begin to relax.

“Yeah.” Jason lifts a hand to rest it on the back of Dick’s neck. “You’re sure there’s nothing you want to ask me?”

“No. Well, I mean yes, but not right now.” Dick says, leaning into Jason’s grip. He leans forward to drop a quick kiss on Jason’s lips. It’s a nice kiss, but after watching so many Jasons and Dicks get together, a nice quick kiss isn’t enough for Jason.

Jason can feel the warming rays of the morning sun hitting his neck, and he tightens his arm around Dick’s waist, pulling him back in close. The hand on Dick’s neck keeps him still as Jason leans in for another kiss, only to twist Dick’s upper body to the side and back, dipping him as low as he dares.

Dick’s outer leg rises up, his heel catching on Jason’s knee for stability. The kiss before was good, nice, great after so long going without, but this kiss? This is the sort of kiss Jason’s been missing. It feels like fireworks going off inside him, like the two of them are flying weightless through the sky. With Dick’s hands gripping on to his shoulders, the closeness of their bodies and the feel of their mingling breath, Jason knows he’s home.

When Jason brings them upright, Dick’s knees are a little wobbly and he rests against Jason with a blissful look on his face, right up until he opens those bright blue eyes and looks up at Jason.

“Well, I guess there’s one thing I do want to ask you...” Dick says with a glint in his eyes.

“Oh?” Jason says, tilting his head. There’s a lot Dick could ask him, but something about the glint is a little too familiar for it to be a new question.

“Yeah.” Dick hums and then inhales. Jason knows what’s coming, and sure enough, Dick goes into a sing song voice. “Do you want to build a baby~?”

Jason knows his cue is to say no and then call Dick a blockhead, but he’s had time to think on his inter-dimensional journey, so he skips a line and sings “OK~.”  
Dick blinks, clearly thrown for a moment, and then a bright smile breaks over his face, rivalling the rising sun behind them. He jumps up, kissing Jason thoroughly, kicking both his feet up behind him, all his weight being held up by Jason. “Really?”

“Yes. We’re gonna be great parents, Dickie.” Jason says, once Dick pulls back from the kiss to hug Jason tightly. “Even if you are a total blockhead.”

“Yeah, we are, Jay!” Dick says, hugging Jason even tighter.

Behind them the constellation of the Gem finally dips out of the morning sky, and Jason’s finally back where he belongs. Back with his Dickie.


End file.
